March-Right Out Straight
of books, of projects, of all the quiet in-betweens (and of new patches)
Maybe we try this thing called Right Out Straight as a part of this whole new exploration of substack? The routines, favorites, and projects that are keepin me busy. Everything on substack seems to have a cute name and I wanna get in on that. OUT STRAIGHT, as defined by John Gould in his book Maine Lingo is “anybody bustling about, full of business, too active to do anything else, is right out straight. The phrase comes from teaming oxen; as they lean into their yoke and strain every muscle the chain connecting them to the load is right out straight.” Will it stick? TBD.
It is objectively a dismal time to try to sell your wares on the internet. After a trip to the Big City I’ve been trying to write a post about ruralness, that deep love I have for where I live, or, anything really, and it feels insane and impossible to write when the world is on fire in every conceivable way. Every time I sit down to do so I just give up as it all feels too trite in this mess. I open my computer, stare at it for a few minutes, and then close it, turn my audiobook back on and walk downstairs to turn the kettle on. This past month I was gone so much that the moments of being home, in between the reading of the paper and the doom scrolling, have been a constant seeking of quiet moments of joy and a batting away of the guilt for the feeling or the not feeling. Every day feels like a long wait til the next cup of tea with friends. But somehow the hours and days are rolling by and every moment feels extra precious in these dismal times.
I’ve become a tea in bed sort of person, putting the kettle on the most aggressive heat right when I go downstairs to pee; just the right amount of water in the kettle, no more, so by the time I feed the cats and say good morning to the house it is whistling away and ready to be poured (PG Tips for LIFE) and carried back to bed for half an hour of reading. I’ve been cruising through One Hundred Years of Solitude, it makes me long for a landscape I have never known and make me think of everything incidental as being full of mystery and magic. (No, I don’t want to watch the show.) I read Love in the Time of Cholera late last year loved it too. Gabriel García Márquez is a master of capturing the excruciating beauty of the most mundane human emotions.
I almost always have one physical book and one audio book going at any given time, so as soon as I finish my bed tea I transition to the kitchen and my audiobook. I have started listening to audiobooks at 1.4 speed because really no one talks that slow okay, and thus have been cruising through them. I really enjoyed This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell: I think there is something deeply appealing about escaping into the minutia of other people’s lives and relationships in parallel realities, these days especially. The highlight of my workweek is often a morning of discussing “low stakes tea” with my one sweet assistant, I have long been a lover of gossip and heartily believe in its benefits, and I think learning about a friend of a friend of a friend having a baby and another friend of a friend of a friend’s missed connection adding them on facebook and another random person you overheard on the subway two weeks ago talking about finding true love at a hostel or WHATEVER IT MAY BE feels so sweet and tender in this huge and isolated and online world and I revel in it. Maybe this is why I love memoirs. We all just want a window into someone else’s life just to see what it’s like in there. That’s why we’re all here, right?
Okay back to books for a second, I am currently listening to The Dead Come to Stay by Brandy Schillace after having scratched my fluffy mystery itch with The Framed Women of Ardmore House and discovering it had the aforementioned sequel. A few years ago I listened to fifteen books in the series Her Royal Sypness, which is honestly humiliating to say out loud but I love a formulaic mystery and have decided in my adulthood that no book should be considered too insubstantial or intellectually lacking to enjoy heartily and that’s a freeing choice to have made I’ll tell you what.
In the studio everything is both frantic and at a standstill. Is there a word for that feeling in any language, or even in this language? I entered the year with all sorts of enthusiasm about making a real calendar with pages in addition to the tea towel and paper calendar I’ve made for the past six years, but I am now realizing that is a wholly unrealistic goal for 2026/2027. However, I figure if I made 12 square format prints over the next year maybe 2028 will be the year of two types of calendars, so I find myself carving square prints with gusto. It’s been bringing so much joy to do illustrative scenes again and to feel an excitement for making art carving prints that got swept away in the flood of transitions and emotions of the past few years. So that is what is on the desk in the studio, as well as a new collection of patches, as always, they’re actually in my shop now, the password is SPRINGFEVER.
Please let me know if that password works, if you like or can even see the password for the shop in this format. I know it’s buried in here. If you are seeing this post after noon on March 14th 2026, you won’t need this password and these patches will likely be gone. I have been trying to streamline allll of my systems, and have toyed with the idea of doing away with newsletter subscriber early access to the shop, but I think once you offer that it is hard to go back. What do you think? How do we simplify?!
Since my socks there has been nothing on my knitting needles that excites me these days, although I desperately want to try log cabin knitting after seeing my friend Lily post about it, and then my friend Autumn knitting some inspired by Lily, and then seeing THIS FREAKING SWEATER that I am obsessed with. I’ve been feeling that spring lull in knitting inspiration, or maybe that’s just the way of the world these days. Or maybe this gentle blanket of spring snow outside my window will motivate me again, or maybe I’ll just hunker down with my book and read til noon.
Mostly I have been doing a lot of reveling in every moment of being home after being away for three weekends in a row. I am a homebody by nature, but leaving the county has been good for me this winter; everyone always says a change of scenery is good and this is the first year I’ve felt like dishing out that advice myself. I am grateful for the all the friends and places along the way and grateful to have the flexibility to go and come back at leisure. It is such a privilege.
Other thing worth reveling in:
not wearing long underwear for the first time in months.
not wearing winter boots for the first time in months
making the same breakfast over and over and over again for months (tinned mackerel, rice, over medium egg, onions, avocado, cucumber, sriracha, mayo)
admitting you kinda like camo after all
deleting instagram as much as possible and only taking photos with the big camera and getting over the awkwardness of taking the big camera everywhere
Okay now I’m getting an oversharing hangover, easing back into this whole writing about life thing. I hope you all are wallowing through okay, there is so much to be said about the state of the world and right now all I can say is show up for your communities: it’s town meeting season here in Maine, find yours and go. Get involved, help your neighbors, drowning in the global despair is unavoidable but so is tomorrow, you know what I’m saying?
Thank you for being here, please tell me what you like to read about on substack, send your suggestions.
MUCH LOVE,
Addie
Hi, I very recently came across you and your work and it makes me miss Maine so much! I now live in upstate New York, but I grew up on the coast of Southern Maine and need to come back home soon. Love the series name and your prints. 💕
After a few months of burning at both ends, i was gifted to read your newsletter this morning and it was precisely what i needed. thank you for sharing!