Marthe

30 something | she/her | reading, planning, fiber arts

[martherenee]

Weird little page with a coffee spill. Idk what I’m doing with my journals lately. My lifestyle has changed a lot since the beginning of the year. I’ve mostly been writing in a regular notebook but I want to find a way to use this planner for the rest of the year.

[martherenee]

I went to the coffee shop this morning hoping to see you. I did, but we ignored each other.

[mournfulroses]

Fyodor Dostoevsky, from a letter featured in Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his Family & Friends

[martherenee]

4.1.26

Reading and fucking and drinking coffee and walking trails and watching movies and feeling truly relaxed for the first time since….??? I can’t even remember.

This winter really put us through the wringer and our time in this little house in the mountains feels like a reward. Who we are now, how we know each other. It wouldn’t have been like this a few years ago.

[ryebreadgf]

real yearners miss shit that never even happened

[martherenee]

3.26.26

Today is the first day of a week and a half long vacation. I'm off work, but we're not leaving until Sunday. This will be the first time in the ten years since having kids that my husband and I will be taking a trip together, just us. I'm so excited, but already dreading it being over. Trying to just stay in the moment. I have an hour left to hang out at the coffee shop before I have to pick up a kid from a half day, walk a dog, go to a parent-teacher conference, get the kids packed for grandma's house, and then make the drive over there.

I came to the coffee shop with the intention of working on an essay and some other assignments, but here I am journaling instead. I wish I could wake up earlier to get my journaling and personal writing done, but my bed has such a hold on me. Although I've found it much easier to fall asleep lately, I haven't been getting the best quality sleep. My SSRI is giving me the worst night sweats, and I wake up drenched and cold. I need to speak to my doctor about it, but my list of life admin is becoming crushing.

I've been feeling a pull lately to write about past experiences. To work through some of those stories that replay in my head but when I sit down to write, it's always the minutiae of schedules and task lists that spill out. I suppose that is the purpose of daily pages, get all that out of the way.

[martherenee]

I hold so much back in my writing, especially my physical journals. The idea of them being read is paralysing. It's not that I have secrets to keep. It's that constant push and pull between wanting to be fully seen and wanting to keep everything for myself.

Over the weekend, I read Vigdis Hjorth's short novel Repetition, and there is a chapter near the end where the unnamed protagonist describes how she begins to edit her writing after her parents find and read her journal, leading to a devastating misunderstanding.

"I edited and weeded out anything I thought contained traces of me, I wrote and amended as if I were under surveillance and could be punished for my words, and I could."

[martherenee]

3.15.25

The end of a long work weekend. The early mornings zapped my motivation, and I'm going into the week feeling that I'm so behind I'll never catch up. I'm in my thirties, taking my first college class, and wondering if it was a horrible idea. This isn't what I sat down to write about, but my procrastination and the wind whipping around my house for the third day in a row have set me on edge.

[intactics-deactivated20250505]

what Work is the most important? the work you have to do next. narrow the scope of focus down to that singular glittering point.

[sisyphusshrugged]

How to get out of a rut

[can-i-make-image-descriptions]

[Image ID: Text reading: If you can approach your daily life in this way for a while – as a sequence of momentary, self-contained, eminently doable actions, rather than as an arduous matter of chipping away at enormous challenges – you might notice something profound, which is that, in fact, this is all you ever need to do. You can make your way through life exclusively in this manner. As E. L. Doctorow said of writings, it's like "drive at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.") /End ID]

[martherenee]

3.13.26

Succumbed to a nap when I should have been doing so many other things. Now I'm listening to the wind rip some loose siding off my house. The dog thinks we're having a break in. One more thing to add to never ending list of tasks.

Yesterday was really nice, I wish I could go back in time. I know I said I felt interrupted by my husband coming home early, but we ended up going into the local art supply store and then hung out at the coffee shop for a bit. Made steak and asparagus for dinner, and had a nice, quiet evening with minimal arguing between the kids. A miracle, really.

[torpublishinggroup]

“It is not a weakness to be seen.” ― Shen Tao, The Poet Empress

[martherenee]

3.12.26

Had a slow morning, which was nice, but now the anxiety of not getting enough done is setting in. My husband decided to come home early from work; he should be here soon. I'm looking forward to spending time with him, but also feeling interrupted. I had planned to go to the coffee shop and work on an essay. My hours of solitude are so limited, and I value them more than just about anything. Yet I always feel like I haven't made the most of them.

[weepingwidar]

Noelia Towers (Catalan/American, 1992) - Runs and Ladders (2025)

[martherenee]

3.11.26

A blessedly warm sunny day in March. Only a false spring, but after a long, hard winter, I had almost forgotten what it could feel like. Could it be true? Will summer come again? Of course it will. It's been the coldest winter I can remember and also the most emotional. How can you know someone more than half of your life and then come to the realisation that you hardly knew them at all? Everything unspoken, assumed for over a decade. Turns out I'm not a mind reader after all. What broke the dam? I never thought it would be you. The one who broke the dam on that doomed relationship all those years ago. And here you are again, although you have no idea this time. Breaking us open, showing us our softest, most hidden parts. When we locked eyes for the first time, I knew we were connected in some way. I mistook it for romantic love, but the tests of time have shown it to be something else entirely. I wish I could tell you all of this, but I think that would just be selfish. But once you have broken open, how do you keep anything in? This is the root of what is pulling me in every direction. I want to be seen exactly as I am.

[velvetcloak]

Elle Fanning (ph: Szilveszter Makó)

[martherenee]

I’ve been too nervous to paint in my notebooks but this sauce recipe needed some color.

[shakespearesdaughters]

~ Monday ~