Can you believe that Mary Oliver has been gone from us for three long years? I devoured her poetry in college. I still remember finding Our World while looking for font type catalogs at my college library: I plonked myself on the floor, right in the aisle, and finished the entire short book in one sitting.

I've since wandered my way through many of her poetry collections, and added a copy of Devotions to my collection a few years ago. I prefer to check out books from the library now, but it just felt right to own such a dense book. I still revisit it from time to time. She retreads familiar territory, but there's an earnestness to each poem that makes it feel fresh. I could read about sand dunes all day if Oliver told me about them.

Poetry does still have a bit of cringe factor attached to it. I think many of us imagine brooding, rhyming texts written by a guy in high school. But if there could be a place to start, Oliver's poetry is so accessible and touches on many of the simplest yet most inscrutable emotions we could experience. And I'm sure you've read at least one.  

Above, one of my favorite poems. It's the final poem in Our World, a book of prose and poetry written by Oliver with photographs by Molly Malone Cook, her longtime partner.

If you don’t already know, I have a hoarding mentality. It no doubt comes from generations of saving perfectly sized boxes and jars for organizing household goods¹. It’s why I have so many fountain pens, stickers, washi tapes, inks, stamps, extra correction tapes, skeins of yarn, dice… I have the brain of a magpie, and I do appreciate my need for curling my claws around sparkly and cute things, but sometimes it’s a little out of control.

Well, it’s certainly been a while.

Hello everyone! Yes, I’m still alive, in great health and reasonably good spirits! I’m sure you’ve noticed that this blog has been quiet. To get right to the chase: I got bored of writing ink reviews. I like certain colors and gravitate towards them. Most reviews ended up being about the same handful of colors from different brands, and honestly—fountain pen ink manufacturers are pretty darn good at what they do nowadays. I don’t think I’ve experienced a bad ink in a while. Just find the colors you like and use them. It really is that simple (or, as I’m sure my fellow ink hoarders would understand, it could be that simple…).

So I took a break, and then a longer break, and now I’m writing this in the dregs of 2021. Time flies. I’ve been doing other things—reading, knitting, writing, working—and feeling satisfied. I made my way through 24 books, feverishly knitted four beanies in the last month, and wrote about 16,000 words of fiction (a big drop from last year's 100,000 (yes, that many), but still very laudable). I continue to be gainfully employed at JetPens (have you seen me in videos?). I never got the urge to come back and write another ink review, that’s for sure.

But I want to try and branch out into writing casually for an audience about one of my favorite hobbies, so here’s my resolution for 2022: writing at least one post a month for the rest of the year about whatever I want, as long as it’s about stationery. Please forgive me the occasional phone photo.

I guess we’ll have to see about whether or not the blog sticks around after this pivot, but maybe you’ll stick around to see if it crashes or burns.

I hope you’ve all had a wonderful holiday season. Brighter days are ahead, even if we have to light the candles our dang selves.