<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:googleplay="http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[BrocanteHome: 🌸 Brocante 75]]></title><description><![CDATA[75 Days of Heart and Home]]></description><link>https://brocantealison.substack.com/s/brocante-75</link><image><url>https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!JTkd!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2edbfbee-e982-4226-a995-9fe354fec876_1000x1000.png</url><title>BrocanteHome: 🌸 Brocante 75</title><link>https://brocantealison.substack.com/s/brocante-75</link></image><generator>Substack</generator><lastBuildDate>Sat, 20 Jun 2026 07:35:42 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://brocantealison.substack.com/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><copyright><![CDATA[Alison May]]></copyright><language><![CDATA[en]]></language><webMaster><![CDATA[brocantealison@substack.com]]></webMaster><itunes:owner><itunes:email><![CDATA[brocantealison@substack.com]]></itunes:email><itunes:name><![CDATA[Alison May]]></itunes:name></itunes:owner><itunes:author><![CDATA[Alison May]]></itunes:author><googleplay:owner><![CDATA[brocantealison@substack.com]]></googleplay:owner><googleplay:email><![CDATA[brocantealison@substack.com]]></googleplay:email><googleplay:author><![CDATA[Alison May]]></googleplay:author><itunes:block><![CDATA[Yes]]></itunes:block><item><title><![CDATA[5. Brocante75: Week One #printables]]></title><description><![CDATA[The Clearing]]></description><link>https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/brocante75-week-one-printables</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/brocante75-week-one-printables</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alison May]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:18:54 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!--4g!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!--4g!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!--4g!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!--4g!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!--4g!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!--4g!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!--4g!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png" width="1456" height="819" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:819,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:2562223,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://brocantealison.substack.com/i/202188726?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!--4g!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!--4g!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!--4g!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!--4g!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21bc3ba1-8758-4c62-b2ed-dd2fcc3c9da7_1672x941.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><h2>Days 1-7 of the Brocante75</h2><p><em>Beginning where the shame is.</em></p><p>Every house has a place that has stopped being a place and become a feeling. A chair that wears its clothes. A basket that has entered local legend. A surface that began as somewhere to put one thing and has since become a small administrative nation. A drawer that opens only if you make a bargain with it. A pile beside the bed that seems to be composed not merely of books and receipts and hair clips, but of every decision you were too tired to make&#8230;</p><p><em>This week, we begin there.</em></p><p>Not because the house is bad. Nor because you are bad. And definitely not  because the mess is evidence in some grim domestic trial and the prosecution has brought photographs. We begin there because the things we have stopped seeing are often the things that have been quietly costing us the most. The surface we step past. The basket we pretend is furniture. The cupboard whose contents we have renamed &#8220;later.&#8221; Every time we pass these little domestic ghosts, something in us contracts. Only a little. Only for a second. But a woman can be diminished by inches. And so she can also be restored by them.</p><p>This is the week of <strong>the clearing</strong>.</p>
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[4. Brocante75 - Prep Day #printables]]></title><description><![CDATA[Day One Starts Tomorrow - Let's Get ready!]]></description><link>https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/4-brocante75-prep-day-printables</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/4-brocante75-prep-day-printables</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alison May]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 15 Jun 2026 14:40:01 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yT7z!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b0616ca-36e0-4bac-8088-6815cb42be1e_1672x941.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yT7z!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b0616ca-36e0-4bac-8088-6815cb42be1e_1672x941.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yT7z!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b0616ca-36e0-4bac-8088-6815cb42be1e_1672x941.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yT7z!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b0616ca-36e0-4bac-8088-6815cb42be1e_1672x941.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yT7z!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b0616ca-36e0-4bac-8088-6815cb42be1e_1672x941.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yT7z!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b0616ca-36e0-4bac-8088-6815cb42be1e_1672x941.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yT7z!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b0616ca-36e0-4bac-8088-6815cb42be1e_1672x941.png" width="1456" height="819" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yT7z!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b0616ca-36e0-4bac-8088-6815cb42be1e_1672x941.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yT7z!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b0616ca-36e0-4bac-8088-6815cb42be1e_1672x941.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yT7z!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b0616ca-36e0-4bac-8088-6815cb42be1e_1672x941.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yT7z!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b0616ca-36e0-4bac-8088-6815cb42be1e_1672x941.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Tomorrow is day one, Which means <em>today</em> isn&#8217;t the day to panic-clean the entire house, buy a new personality, reorganise the pantry, laminate your intentions, alphabetise your feelings, or become briefly possessed by a woman on the internet who owns matching glass jars and a label maker.</p><p><em>Today is Prep Day.</em></p><p>Prep Day is the little threshold before the seventy-five days. The gathering-in. The laying out of the pieces. Today we aren&#8217;t doing The Brocante75. Not yet. Today we&#8217;re making it feel possible, inviting, and close enough to touch.</p><p>Because beginning matters. Not in a grand, theatrical, must-change-everything-by-breakfast sort of way, but in the quieter sense that we are far more likely to return to something if we&#8217;ve made it feel welcoming. So today we prepare the house a little, the page a little, the body a little, the nerve a little, and the tiny wild part of ourselves that wants this to work but is trying not to look too hopeful in case hope makes a fool of her again.</p><p><em>Let her be hopeful.</em></p><p>Hope, properly handled, isn&#8217;t foolish It&#8217;s a houseplant, in need of light, water, a decent corner, and just a ounce or tow of commitment to the cause that is you.</p><h2>Today&#8217;s Prep List</h2><p><strong>Here is what to do today, the day before you begin.</strong></p><p>Don&#8217;t treat this as a military briefing. Treat it as a tray of small invitations. Do what you can. Skip what you need to. The whole point of Brocante75 isn&#8217;t to begin in a blaze of perfection and collapse by Thursday. The point is to create a frame you can return to, even when the day has ran away with itself.</p>
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[3. Brocante75: The Kept Self]]></title><description><![CDATA[Why Keeping Ourselves Matters As Much As Keeping the House]]></description><link>https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/3-the-kept-self</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/3-the-kept-self</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alison May]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:40:12 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OzkA!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F227e0ec6-cca5-45fd-af78-ea25699db98c_1672x941.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OzkA!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F227e0ec6-cca5-45fd-af78-ea25699db98c_1672x941.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OzkA!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F227e0ec6-cca5-45fd-af78-ea25699db98c_1672x941.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OzkA!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F227e0ec6-cca5-45fd-af78-ea25699db98c_1672x941.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OzkA!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F227e0ec6-cca5-45fd-af78-ea25699db98c_1672x941.png 1272w, 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class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>There&#8217;s a reason I chose the word keeping. A reason beyond whimsy, though I adore whimsy, and a reason beyond the pretty, though the pretty has long been redemption in a world determined to get uglier by the day.</p><p>Twenty something years ago I sat down at a computer the size of a bread bin and named the thing I did. I called it <em>vintage housekeeping</em>, and I remember the small click of rightness when I typed it. A little phrase. A small flag planted in the wacky soil of the early internet. Because I wanted a way to describe the business of tending a home with more reverence than was fashionable and more feeling than was strictly sensible. And until that evening, sitting on my yellow velvet sofa, it didn&#8217;t exist.</p><p>And then it wandered off in a thousand aprons.</p><p>It came back as vintage homemaking. It appeared on blogs everywhere, plumped and softened and sometimes made so sweet it gave me a toothache in my eye. Which is fine. Language does that. It breeds. It borrows shoes. It runs off with women in Utah and women making sourdough in Yorkshire, and bless it, truly, but every time I saw it I felt the way you feel when somebody folds your towels in half instead of thirds. Politely murderous.</p><p>Because I chose house/<em><strong>keeping</strong></em> on purpose. </p><p>Making, you see, is a word with a finish line in it. Making implies arrival. Making suggests one might someday stand in the doorway, wipe one&#8217;s hands on one&#8217;s yoga pants, survey the whole gorgeous arrangement and say, <em>there</em>, done! As if a home were a cake. As if the soul could be assembled on a Sunday afternoon with nowt but a glue gun, a hope and a prayer.</p><p>But keeping is different.</p><p>Keeping is the daily returning. Keeping is the matter of devotion after inspiration has flounced out the room. Keeping is what happens when the floor is vulgar again by lunchtime, when the flowers are shedding their little sorrows into the water, when the fridge has become unspeakable and some invisible little gremlin has seen fit to refill the laundry basket while your back was turned.</p><p><em>Keeping is the word we use for the things that would wander off without us.</em></p><p>We keep bees and we keep promises. </p><p>We keep vigils at the bedsides of the people we love. A lighthouse keeper didn&#8217;t <em>make</em> the light, she returned to it, night after night after night, up the cold spiral of the stairs in all weathers, because a light that gets lit once is just a memory of a light. The keeping was the job.</p><p>And a house is exactly that sort of creature. All loose morals and wild ideas. Alive, and therefore the work is alive? Turn your back on it for a fortnight and the dust bunnies move in carrying all manner of odds and sods you don&#8217;t remember ordering. I found this devastating at twenty five and I find it comforting now, because it means the house and I are in a relationship rather than a transaction, and relationships are kept up. Attended to. Visited daily with small offerings of beeswax and open windows.</p><p>The house, you see, is where the truth leaks out. You can say you&#8217;re fine, then find yourself unable to open the post for seventeen days. You can say you&#8217;re liberated, then realise you&#8217;ve been feeding everyone except yourself with the miserable holiness of a martyr in need of a marmite toastie.</p><p><em>The house knows. She is a witness with skirting boards.</em></p><p>So far so domestic. You knew all this. You&#8217;ve been keeping house alongside me for years, some of you for decades, you could grade my linen cupboard from memory.</p><p>Here is the part it took me until my fifties to say out loud - </p><p><em>What is true of the house is true of the woman who lives inside it. We don&#8217;t make ourselves once and for all. We <strong>keep </strong>ourselves. Or we forget to, and discover what forgetting costs.</em></p><p>We kept thinking, didn&#8217;t we, that one day, there would be a finished version of us? Eventually. A made self. We&#8217;d lose the weight or survive the divorce or get the children grown and launched, and then, <em>ta dah</em>, the self would be complete and we could finally stand back from her with our hands on our hips. We treated ourselves like a project with a delivery date. Like a loft conversion. Or a new conservatory.</p><p>But darling, you were never a project. You were always a house. A rambling, draughty, peculiar old property with good bones and a history, and you require keeping. Daily, faithful keeping. The kind nobody applauds.</p><p>The kept self has not <em>solved</em> herself.  There is no solution to be had and hell&#8217;s bells, what a tedious dinner guest she would be, if there were. She has probably cried in supermarket car parks. She has probably made several life decisions while dehydrated and wearing shoes that were creating blisters in her head.</p><p>The kept self is the woman who notices. That&#8217;s all at first?</p><p>She notices the way she has started speaking to herself as if she were an employee on a written warning. She notices the hour at which she begins to disappear. She notices the small bureaucracies of neglect: the prescription not collected, the book not opened, the bra that fits like a punishment, the meal deferred until she is all snarl and static.</p><p>Then, because she is a Brocante woman, which is to say a woman of peculiar courage and unreasonable taste, she does one tiny thing.</p><p>She cuts fruit into a bowl because apparently she&#8217;s not livestock. She opens the bedroom window because her thoughts have gone stale. She puts clean sheets on the bed and understands, briefly, that civilised society was invented for this exact moment. She writes one sentence that has been tapping on the inside of her skull since March. She turns down an invitation because her spirit has started making fax-machine noises.</p><p>She does the small thing and the small thing becomes a hinge.</p><p>And she needs the hinge, because life is erosive. Every day takes a little. Noise takes a little. Money fear takes a little. Men with mad ideas take a little. Children, even grow-up beloved children, take a little. Hormones take a little then leave the room laughing. Grief takes rather more than it was offered and doesn&#8217;t always return the silver.</p><p>Without keeping, we are worn away. We become all edge and obligation. We become capable in the way a mule is capable. Women who can remember everyone&#8217;s dental appointment but can&#8217;t remember what music once made us feel like we had a bloodstream full of stars.</p><p>Which brings me, by way of the scenic route, to Brocante 75.</p><p>Seventy five days. Forever is too enormous and too bossy, and the brittle online sort of challenge turns everyone unbearable by day nine, smug like a protein powder advert. Seventy five days is a container. A period of gentle allegiance. A domestic novena for the muddled, the clever, the overheated, the grieving, the hungry, and the unfinished.</p><p>Five small practices, every day, for seventy five days. Five candles lit in the lighthouse of you, daily, in all weathers. Come rain or shine.</p><p>Because muchy, gloriously messy women like us need frames. We are wild within them, that&#8217;s the trick. Too much freedom and we evaporate into tabs and intentions and half-formed revolutions. Too much rigidity and we become furious little goats, kicking against the pen. But a chosen frame, a lovely serious ridiculous frame, gives the day somewhere to pour itself, doesn&#8217;t it?</p><p>People ask me, (they always ask me), what happens when I fail? When I miss a day?</p><p>And oh, the relief of this answer. You probably WILL fail and when you do, you repair. You don&#8217;t <em>restart.</em></p><p>Because what does a housekeeper do when she finds the milk gone over and the floor unswept after a hard week? She doesn&#8217;t burn the house down and apply for a new one, now does she? She opens a window. She sweeps the one floor. The house receives her back without a single word of reproach, because houses, unlike diets, hold no grudges. You missed three days? The kept self has dust on the mantel, that&#8217;s all.  It tells you where to put the cloth.</p><p>I know the modern mind flinches at commitment. We&#8217;ve been sold spontaneity as proof of authenticity, as though the self is most real when it is unbound, rampaging through the day like a bull in proverbial china shop. But devotion is what makes freedom habitable. A piano player becomes free through scales. A woman becomes free, sometimes, through the small ceremonial insistence that she will not abandon herself before breakfast.</p><p>This is where the word religion becomes useful, and I mean it in the old, earthy sense, <em>religare</em>, to bind back, or to tie again. A religion in the domestic sense is simply the set of things you&#8217;ve bound yourself to. The things you do because you do them. The housekeeper has always had one, she just never called it that. Monday&#8217;s wash and Friday&#8217;s floors. The rituals before Christmas. Liturgy in an apron.</p><p>Simple religion. The religion of lighting the room before dusk gets its teeth in. The religion of making the bed even when the world has no manners. The religion of reading a page instead of zoning out in front of a screen. </p><p><em>The religion of putting yourself on the list of all the things that require tenderness.</em></p><p>Commitment, it turns out, is much lighter than motivation ever was. Motivation has to be summoned, fresh, every morning, like a difficult houseguest who has to be coaxed downstairs. Commitment got up before you did and has already put the porridge on.</p><p>And the question commitment keeps asking, the question at the heart of the 75, is this. What keeps ME?</p><p>What keeps me from fraying beyond recognition? What keeps me kind without making me compliant? What keeps me gentle without making me foolish? What keeps me awake to pleasure when the world is selling dread by the bucket? What keeps me in my body when I would rather float above it keeping up the sarcastic commentary that would have me laughing out loud, were it not for the fact that I&#8217;m too self-aware to allow my inner bitch to run the show&#8230;</p><p>What keeps me here?</p><p>The answer will be different for every woman, which is why I&#8217;m not casting commandments from a mountain called Moral Superiority. For one woman, keeping herself will mean walking before the day can invent objections. For another, eating breakfast like an adult mammal. For another, refusing to make her home a museum of everybody else&#8217;s comfort. For another, letting the house be slightly less perfect so the woman inside it can be slightly more real.</p><p>For me, the kept self is often created in scraps. A line in a notebook. A room aired. A candle lit on a perfectly ordinary afternoon, because ordinary afternoons are where most lives are spent and therefore deserve ceremonial interference. A boundary held with a shaking voice. An egg eaten before the day becomes the kid of melodrama likely to undo me.</p><p>So let me say this loudly enough to frighten the pigeons: <em>there is nothing selfish in any of it. </em></p><p>The kept self is resourced, and a resourced woman is a different creature altogether. She can love without vanishing. She can serve without shrinking. She can say yes from abundance and no from sanity. She can make a life that has handles on it. And pour from a full cup.</p><p>A kept woman, in the most traditional sense of the word, was a woman maintained by somebody else.</p><p><em><strong>Let&#8217;s steal it back!</strong></em></p><p>Let a kept woman be a woman maintained by her own devotion. Kept by her rituals and her refusals. Kept by her pleasures and her friendships. Kept by books and soup and sleep and the outrageous decision to take her own atmosphere seriously. Kept by the holy repetition of starting again. And again. And again.</p><p>This is the eccentric gospel of BrocanteHome, really?</p><p> The one that was hiding inside vintage housekeeping all along, back when I was simply gathering doilies and domestic longing and a private ache for a lovelier way to live. We keep the house. The house keeps us. We keep ourselves so we can remain in conversation with both.</p><p>Because a house can be swept and still feel abandoned. A woman can be loved and still be unkept.</p><p>So this is my invitation, dear Brocanteer: keep the house, yes. But keep the woman. Keep her fed and rested. Keep her adorned in whatever peculiar way reminds her she is flesh and flame. Keep her books near. Keep her away from the people and habits that turn her into a clenched version of herself. Keep her in the small daily religion of coming back, for seventy five days to begin with, repaired when broken and resumed when dropped, with no finish line glittering falsely on the horizon.</p><p>The house never asked to be <em>made.</em> Neither did you.</p><p><em>You were always the house.</em></p><p>Brocante 75 starts on Monday, June the 15th, 2026 for my paying subscribers.</p><p>Come and keep yourself with me.</p><p><em><strong>Gloriously messy. Deeply kept.</strong></em></p><h3><strong>Love Alison.x</strong></h3><div><hr></div><div class="callout-block" data-callout="true"><h2 style="text-align: center;"><strong>Wait! I&#8217;ve Got a Special Offer For You!</strong></h2><p style="text-align: center;">Choose or upgrade to an annual subscription and get the whole year for $75.00 (<em>approx</em>) if you join before Brocante75 begins!</p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://brocantealison.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=07a218a3&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Grab Your Discount Here&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://brocantealison.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=07a218a3"><span>Grab Your Discount Here</span></a></p></div><div><hr></div><p>Learn More About Brocante75 here&#8230;</p><div class="digest-post-embed" data-attrs="{&quot;nodeId&quot;:&quot;6962e2eb-99af-4a64-895c-1237884abe81&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;There is a basket of laundry on the stairs that has been there so long it has rendered you blind. You step over it on the way to bed. You have in fact been stepping over it for eleven days now, and somewhere beneath the towels and the socks and the tiny daily failures you stopped having the energy to name, a part of you is still in there too, folded small.&quot;,&quot;cta&quot;:null,&quot;showBylines&quot;:true,&quot;showDescription&quot;:true,&quot;showImage&quot;:true,&quot;size&quot;:&quot;sm&quot;,&quot;isEditorNode&quot;:true,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;1. Brocante 75&quot;,&quot;publishedBylines&quot;:[{&quot;id&quot;:122264405,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Alison May&quot;,&quot;bio&quot;:&quot;This is a love letter to unravelling. Think midlife meltdown meets feminist renaissance, with a splash of ink, a sigh of lavender, and a refusal to stay quiet. For those becoming something beautifully true, one broken bit at a time.&quot;,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/69dd378c-58c0-43bf-a416-07b5f4bc6674_1125x1456.jpeg&quot;,&quot;is_guest&quot;:false,&quot;bestseller_tier&quot;:null}],&quot;post_date&quot;:&quot;2026-06-09T17:41:43.706Z&quot;,&quot;cover_image&quot;:&quot;https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1gM1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3adb2685-626f-4e8c-99b6-b4421198e70a_1672x941.png&quot;,&quot;cover_image_alt&quot;:null,&quot;canonical_url&quot;:&quot;https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/brocante-75&quot;,&quot;section_name&quot;:&quot;&#127800; Brocante 75&quot;,&quot;video_upload_id&quot;:null,&quot;id&quot;:201318957,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;newsletter&quot;,&quot;reaction_count&quot;:13,&quot;comment_count&quot;:3,&quot;publication_id&quot;:2713040,&quot;publication_name&quot;:&quot;BrocanteHome&quot;,&quot;publication_logo_url&quot;:&quot;https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!JTkd!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2edbfbee-e982-4226-a995-9fe354fec876_1000x1000.png&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;youtube_url&quot;:null,&quot;show_links&quot;:null,&quot;feed_url&quot;:null}"></div><p>And download the manifesto here&#8230;</p><div class="digest-post-embed" data-attrs="{&quot;nodeId&quot;:&quot;4ee054d3-1ff7-4864-9859-2e61bf4d4ace&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Before we begin anything practical, before the lists and the trackers and the earnest little promises made with a pen in hand, we need a vow.&quot;,&quot;cta&quot;:null,&quot;showBylines&quot;:true,&quot;showDescription&quot;:true,&quot;showImage&quot;:true,&quot;size&quot;:&quot;sm&quot;,&quot;isEditorNode&quot;:true,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;2. The Brocante75 Manifesto #printable&quot;,&quot;publishedBylines&quot;:[{&quot;id&quot;:122264405,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Alison May&quot;,&quot;bio&quot;:&quot;This is a love letter to unravelling. Think midlife meltdown meets feminist renaissance, with a splash of ink, a sigh of lavender, and a refusal to stay quiet. For those becoming something beautifully true, one broken bit at a time.&quot;,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/69dd378c-58c0-43bf-a416-07b5f4bc6674_1125x1456.jpeg&quot;,&quot;is_guest&quot;:false,&quot;bestseller_tier&quot;:null}],&quot;post_date&quot;:&quot;2026-06-10T16:27:41.170Z&quot;,&quot;cover_image&quot;:&quot;https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YC4z!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png&quot;,&quot;cover_image_alt&quot;:null,&quot;canonical_url&quot;:&quot;https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/the-brocante75-manifesto&quot;,&quot;section_name&quot;:&quot;&#127800; Brocante 75&quot;,&quot;video_upload_id&quot;:null,&quot;id&quot;:201472383,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;newsletter&quot;,&quot;reaction_count&quot;:9,&quot;comment_count&quot;:0,&quot;publication_id&quot;:2713040,&quot;publication_name&quot;:&quot;BrocanteHome&quot;,&quot;publication_logo_url&quot;:&quot;https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!JTkd!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2edbfbee-e982-4226-a995-9fe354fec876_1000x1000.png&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;youtube_url&quot;:null,&quot;show_links&quot;:null,&quot;feed_url&quot;:null}"></div><p>Next Post in the Series&#8230;</p><div class="digest-post-embed" data-attrs="{&quot;nodeId&quot;:&quot;85af2cbf-2301-4f78-8b91-734a3075ab7e&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Tomorrow is day one, Which means today isn&#8217;t the day to panic-clean the entire house, buy a new personality, reorganise the pantry, laminate your intentions, alphabetise your feelings, or become briefly possessed by a woman on the internet who owns matching glass jars and a label maker.&quot;,&quot;cta&quot;:null,&quot;showBylines&quot;:true,&quot;showDescription&quot;:true,&quot;showImage&quot;:true,&quot;size&quot;:&quot;sm&quot;,&quot;isEditorNode&quot;:true,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;4. Brocante75 - Prep Day #printables&quot;,&quot;publishedBylines&quot;:[{&quot;id&quot;:122264405,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Alison May&quot;,&quot;bio&quot;:&quot;This is a love letter to unravelling. Think midlife meltdown meets feminist renaissance, with a splash of ink, a sigh of lavender, and a refusal to stay quiet. For those becoming something beautifully true, one broken bit at a time.&quot;,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/69dd378c-58c0-43bf-a416-07b5f4bc6674_1125x1456.jpeg&quot;,&quot;is_guest&quot;:false,&quot;bestseller_tier&quot;:null}],&quot;post_date&quot;:&quot;2026-06-15T14:40:01.377Z&quot;,&quot;cover_image&quot;:&quot;https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yT7z!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b0616ca-36e0-4bac-8088-6815cb42be1e_1672x941.png&quot;,&quot;cover_image_alt&quot;:null,&quot;canonical_url&quot;:&quot;https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/4-brocante75-prep-day-printables&quot;,&quot;section_name&quot;:&quot;&#127800; Brocante 75&quot;,&quot;video_upload_id&quot;:null,&quot;id&quot;:202108665,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;newsletter&quot;,&quot;reaction_count&quot;:1,&quot;comment_count&quot;:0,&quot;publication_id&quot;:2713040,&quot;publication_name&quot;:&quot;BrocanteHome&quot;,&quot;publication_logo_url&quot;:&quot;https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!JTkd!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2edbfbee-e982-4226-a995-9fe354fec876_1000x1000.png&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;youtube_url&quot;:null,&quot;show_links&quot;:null,&quot;feed_url&quot;:null}"></div><div><hr></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2. The Brocante75 Manifesto #printable]]></title><description><![CDATA[Print it Out and Live By It]]></description><link>https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/the-brocante75-manifesto</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/the-brocante75-manifesto</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alison May]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:27:41 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YC4z!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YC4z!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YC4z!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YC4z!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YC4z!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YC4z!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YC4z!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png" width="1456" height="819" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:819,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:2766676,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://brocantealison.substack.com/i/201472383?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YC4z!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YC4z!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YC4z!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YC4z!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5a047a58-5160-499d-9a44-68d916dd1ce3_1672x941.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><strong>Before we begin anything practical, before the lists and the trackers and the earnest little promises made with a pen in hand, we need a vow.</strong></p><p>Because The Brocante 75 is not a challenge in the usual sense. It is not a programme designed to make you more impressive, more efficient, more acceptable, more polished, more worthy of being looked at kindly by the imaginary woman in your head with perfect cupboards and suspiciously sensible hair.</p><p><em>It is a return.</em></p><p>For seventy-five days, we are going to keep ourselves.</p><p>We won&#8217;t be fixing ourselves (<em>we aren&#8217;t broken</em>). Or turning the house into a shrine to some improved version of womanhood. We are going to begin exactly where we are, in the middle of the laundry, the half-finished thoughts, the hot flushes, the forgotten corners, the crumbs, the unread books, the small domestic griefs and the stubborn little hopes.</p><p>And the manifesto is here to frame the whole thing.</p><div class="pullquote"><h4>a vow, for the woman who is beginning</h4><p>For the next seventy-five days, I am going to keep myself.</p><p>Not improve myself. Not shrink. I am not going to arrive at the end smaller and more acceptable to some woman I imagine is keeping score. There is no after-photo here. There is only me, on the far side, held.</p><p>I am beginning in the middle of the mess. With the basket on the stairs, and the kitchen in a mood, and the body hot and cross and under-slept. I am not waiting for later. I have lived in later for years. Later, when the house is sorted. Later, when I am thinner, calmer, less tired, less needed by everyone with a mouth and a grievance. I am done filing myself under later.</p><p>So. Every day, five small things.</p><p>I will tend the house for twenty minutes, and then I will stop, because I am not here to clean myself into collapse and call it virtue.</p><p>I will feed myself like someone beloved. A plate. A good cup. Soup counts. Toast, sitting down, counts magnificently.</p><p>I will make one inch of beauty on purpose. A candle lit before I have earned it. A flower in a jam jar. The good perfume on an ordinary Tuesday, even when the day has been rude to me.</p><p>I will keep the page. Ten minutes. A line copied because it was too lovely to leave alone, a chapter read in the bath, one true thing written down.</p><p>I will tend my nerve, and say to my body, in a kinder voice than the one it is used to: you are not being hunted. Not by wolves, or emails, or laundry, or the price of butter. Come here.</p><p>And then I will write one sentence of truth. The real one. Even when it is unflattering, and especially then.</p><p>When I miss a day, and I will miss days, I will not begin the whole thing again with new stationery and a terrifying plan. I will make the tea. I will write one honest sentence about what happened. I will do the smallest possible version of the thing I missed. And I will carry on, from exactly where I am standing.</p><p>Because I am not doing this in order to never fall.</p><p>I am doing this to become a woman who returns. Again and again. Gently and stubbornly. With toast if necessary.</p><p>I am not becoming a better woman.</p><p><strong>I am simply, finally, going to keep myself.</strong></p></div><p>Print it. Pin it where you will see it. Slip it into your planner. Tape it inside a cupboard door. Fold it into your journal. Let it be less of a declaration to the world and more of a private agreement with yourself.</p><p>Read it on Day One, before you begin. Read it again when you miss a day.</p><p>Read it when the house feels too much, when the body feels uncooperative, when the old temptation rises to abandon the whole thing because you have not done it beautifully enough.</p><p>The manifesto is a reminder that this project is not about perfection. It is about return.</p><p>It says: <em>I am not filing myself under later anymore.</em></p><p>It says: <em>I can tend one small thing and stop.</em></p><p>It says: <em>I can feed myself without earning it first.</em></p><p>It says: <em>beauty still counts, even in the mess.</em></p><p>It says: <em>ten minutes with the page is enough.</em></p><p>It says: my nervous system deserves gentleness, not another campaign of self-improvement. And perhaps most importantly, it says that when we fall away, as we will, we do not begin again with terror and fresh stationery and the old familiar whip-crack of shame. We repair. We return. We carry on from exactly where we are standing.</p><p><em>That is the spirit of The Brocante 75.</em></p><p>Not becoming a better woman. (<strong>You are already MARVELLOUS</strong>). But simply, finally, keeping yourself.</p><p>We begin on Monday 15th June. You don&#8217;t have to be ready. Nobody is ever really ready for anything are they? You only have to come downstairs, look at the basket on the stairs, and begin&#8230;</p><p>Come and keep yourself with me.</p><p><em><strong>Gloriously messy. Deeply kept.</strong></em></p><h3> Love Alison.x</h3><p><em>A printable version of the manifesto is available at the end of this post for paying subscribers. Print it, keep it close, and let it be the first small ribbon tied around these seventy-five days.</em></p><div><hr></div><div class="callout-block" data-callout="true"><h2 style="text-align: center;"><strong>Wait! I&#8217;ve Got a Special Offer For You!</strong></h2><p style="text-align: center;">Choose or upgrade to an annual subscription and get the whole year for $75.00 (<em>approx</em>) if you join before Brocante75 begins!</p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://brocantealison.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=07a218a3&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Grab Your Discount Here&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://brocantealison.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=07a218a3"><span>Grab Your Discount Here</span></a></p></div><div><hr></div>
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[START HERE: Brocante 75]]></title><description><![CDATA[Hard enough to change you. Gentle enough to hold you...]]></description><link>https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/brocante-75</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://brocantealison.substack.com/p/brocante-75</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Alison May]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:41:43 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1gM1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3adb2685-626f-4e8c-99b6-b4421198e70a_1672x941.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1gM1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3adb2685-626f-4e8c-99b6-b4421198e70a_1672x941.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1gM1!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3adb2685-626f-4e8c-99b6-b4421198e70a_1672x941.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1gM1!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3adb2685-626f-4e8c-99b6-b4421198e70a_1672x941.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1gM1!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3adb2685-626f-4e8c-99b6-b4421198e70a_1672x941.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1gM1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3adb2685-626f-4e8c-99b6-b4421198e70a_1672x941.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1gM1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3adb2685-626f-4e8c-99b6-b4421198e70a_1672x941.png" width="1456" height="819" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1gM1!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3adb2685-626f-4e8c-99b6-b4421198e70a_1672x941.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1gM1!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3adb2685-626f-4e8c-99b6-b4421198e70a_1672x941.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1gM1!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3adb2685-626f-4e8c-99b6-b4421198e70a_1672x941.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!1gM1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3adb2685-626f-4e8c-99b6-b4421198e70a_1672x941.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>There is a basket of laundry on the stairs that has been there so long it has rendered you blind. You step over it on the way to bed. You have in fact been stepping over it for eleven days now, and somewhere beneath the towels and the socks and the tiny daily failures you stopped having the energy to name, a part of you is still in there too, folded small.</p><p>So I want to make you a proposal.</p><p>This isn&#8217;t a challenge in the punishing sense. Not the optimised-woman thing, where you arrive at the end smaller and more palatable, and still, somehow, not quite enough for whoever it is you imagine is keeping score&#8230;</p><p>Something else entirely. <em>Seventy-five days of keeping yourself.</em></p><p>You will have heard of the other one. The 75Hard one. The one with the macros and the two workouts and the progress photo in the unforgiving bathroom light. I have borrowed its bones and thrown out its soul. We are keeping the structure, because structure is how a tired woman builds momentum without having to feel motivated first. But we are burning the rest at dawn.</p><p>Because I do not want to be smaller. (Well, I do, but not in a way that <em>reduces</em> me)</p><p>And I don&#8217;t want you to feel like you have got to make yourself smaller. I don&#8217;t want us standing in bathrooms documenting our own misery under a light fitting that has never loved a woman in its life.</p><p>I want something richer. Stranger. More useful and more beautiful&#8230;</p><p>I want seventy-five days of returning to the house. To the body. To the page. To the plate. To the nervous system. To the little flame inside you that has been coughing politely from under a pile of receipts, resentment and unopened post.</p><h3>Here is what seventy-five days actually buys you.</h3><p><strong>Not a new life. (</strong><em><strong>I am deeply suspicious of &#8220;new lives&#8221; because they tend to arrive via impossibly glossy women, with ring lights and a payment plan ad I&#8217;m afraid I can&#8217;t be she</strong></em><strong>). But instead, a life put gently back into your own hands.</strong></p><ul><li><p>A house that has started, quietly, to hug you again.</p></li><li><p>A body fed like something beloved rather than managed like a problem.</p></li><li><p>A page kept.</p></li><li><p>A nervous system spoken to in a kinder voice than the one it is used to.</p></li></ul><p><em>And the slow, almost embarrassing return of a woman you had filed under later.</em></p><p><strong>Later,</strong> when the house is sorted.</p><p><strong>Later,</strong> when you are thinner.</p><p><strong>Later,</strong> when you are less tired.</p><p><strong>Later,</strong> when money is better.</p><p><strong>Later,</strong> when everyone else has stopped needing something from you.</p><p><strong>Later,</strong> when you are the sort of woman who can be trusted with linen napkins, morning pages, a clean fridge and an inner life.</p><h3>No!</h3><p>We are going to start before later. We are going to start in the <em>middle</em> of it</p><p>With the basket on the stairs.</p><p>With the kitchen in a mood.</p><p>With the body hot and cross and under-slept.</p><p>With the bank account doing interpretive dance.</p><p>With the phone pinging like a deranged stalker.</p><p>With the good mug, the bad bra, the book we keep meaning to read, the drawer of shame, the flowers we did not buy because <em>who do we think we are?</em></p><p><strong>We start there.</strong></p><h2>What the Brocante 75 is</h2><p><strong>The Brocante 75 is a 75-day devotion to home and the woman who keeps it.</strong></p><p>It&#8217;s not a diet, definitely not a productivity challenge, instead it is a daily practice of tending your actual life, not the fantasy one in which you wake at 5am, drink green things, never lose your temper, and own matching storage containers for every dry good known to woman</p><p>For seventy-five days, we will keep five small devotions.</p><p><em>Small enough to do on a difficult day.</em></p><p><em>Strong enough create the tiniest shifts in atmosphere</em></p><p><em>Beautiful enough to make the whole thing feel less like self-improvement and more like a quiet domestic uprising.</em></p><h2>The Five Daily Devotions</h2><h3>1. Tend the House for Twenty Minutes</h3><p><strong>Not the whole house. </strong><em><strong>God help us, no</strong></em><strong>.</strong></p><p>One surface. One basket. One drawer. The sink. The bedside table. The chair currently dressed as a jumble sale. The hallway that smells a bit dodgy. The kitchen counter. The little corner that mutters at you each time you walk past it.</p><p>Twenty minutes. Then <em>stop.</em></p><p>This bit matters. We are not cleaning ourselves into collapse and calling it virtue. We are teaching the house that we are coming back, and teaching ourselves that we do not have to destroy our nervous system in order to deserve a clean surface.</p><h3>2. Feed Yourself Like Someone Beloved</h3><p><strong>Once a day, you will feed yourself on purpose. </strong></p><p>Not standing at the counter like a rabid raccoon. Not finishing crusts and calling it lunch. Not living on coffee, crumbs and the peculiar rage of four o&#8217;clock.</p><p><em>A plate. A bowl. A cup you actually like. Soup counts. Toast counts. A boiled egg with proper soldiers counts magnificently. A baked potato. A messy peach. Porridge with brown sugar. Cheese and crackers arranged as if you are your own guest.</em></p><p>Because his isn&#8217;t about diet. It is about feeding your hunger with grace and getly shifting the way you feed yourself to something with more ritual.</p><h3>3. Make One Inch of Beauty</h3><p><strong>Every day, one deliberate act of beauty.</strong></p><p>Tiny is fine. Tiny is probably best.</p><p><em>A flower in a jam jar. A candle lit before you have earned it. The lamp instead of the overhead light that makes everyone look recently arrested. The good perfume on a Tuesday. A clean tea towel. A ribbon on a basket. A book left open on the arm of a chair like evidence of civilisation.</em></p><p>Beauty is not what is left over after the important things are done. Beauty is one of the things that makes the important things bearable.</p><h3>4. Keep the Page</h3><p><strong>Ten minutes of reading or writing. That is all.</strong></p><p><em>Read a chapter. Copy a sentence. Keep a commonplace book. Write three diary lines. Make a list. Write a letter you may or may not send. Annotate a poem in the bath. Tell the truth in a notebook with a cover you consider too pretty for your current level of chaos.</em></p><p>A woman who keeps a page keeps a self.</p><h3>5. Tend the Nerve</h3><p><strong>Every day, you will do one thing that tells your nervous system it is not being hunted by wolves, emails, laundry, patriarchy, the group chat, menopause or the price of butter.</strong></p><p>This might be a walk.</p><p>It might be ten minutes of yoga.</p><p>It might be lying flat on the kitchen floor while the kettle does its work.</p><p>It might be legs up the wall.</p><p>It might be music.</p><p>It might be sitting in the garden with no phone.</p><p>It might be sweeping the path dramatically, like a Victorian widow working something out.</p><p>The point is not exercise.</p><p>The point is regulation.</p><p>The point is saying to the body, darling,<em> I know</em>. Come here.</p><p>****</p><h2>And Then, One Sentence of Truth</h2><p><strong>Each day, after the five devotions, you will write one honest sentence.</strong></p><p>Not a gratitude list, though gratitude may arrive if it has the manners.</p><p>A truth.</p><p><em>Today I wanted to disappear, but I folded the towels.</em></p><p><em>The kitchen looked like a crime scene and the roses were magnificent anyway.</em></p><p><em>I did not fix my life today. I lit a candle in it.</em></p><p><em>I ate lunch sitting down and felt weirdly emotional, which frankly seems excessive, but there we are.</em></p><p><em>The house is not the problem. The problem is that I have been trying to live without being held.</em></p><p>One sentence.</p><p>That is enough. Enough is a muscle. So we are going to build it.</p><p>*******</p><h2>The Repair Clause</h2><p>Now listen carefully, because this is the heart of the whole thing&#8230;</p><p><em>You can&#8217;t fail here: you repair, you return.</em></p><p>I know your lives. You are perimenopausal or well past it. Some of you are grieving. Most of you are caring for somebody in oe way or another. A good number of you are neurodivergent and exhausted by a world built for people who are not. Nearly all of you are living in houses where the tumble dryer has quietly become a second religion.</p><p>So there is a rule, and it is the most important rule.</p><blockquote><p><em>Miss a devotion and you do not start the whole thing again like their is penance to pay to the God of BrocanteHome.</em></p></blockquote><p>You have twenty-four hours to perform a small repair.</p><p>Make tea. Sit down. Write one honest sentence about what happened. Do the tiniest possible version of the thing you missed.</p><p><strong>Then </strong><em><strong>carry on.</strong></em></p><p>Because this was never about never falling off.</p><p>The power is in becoming a woman who returns.</p><p>Not once, dramatically, with new stationery and a terrifying plan.</p><p>Again and again. Gently and stubbornly.</p><p><em>With toast if necessary, or a quick scream into the nearest pillow if that&#8217;s the way the day is going&#8230;</em></p><h2>How It Will Work</h2><p><strong>The Brocante 75 will run for ten weeks and five days.</strong></p><p>Each week has a theme, and together we will move through the house and the self, from the clearing of the doom piles in week one to the woman you have become by day seventy-five.</p><p>We begin with the surface that shames us.</p><p>Then the hearth.</p><p>Then the body in the house.</p><p>Then beauty.</p><p>Then the page.</p><p>Then the nervous system.</p><p>Then the social hearth.</p><p>Then the money and meaning cupboard.</p><p>Then ritual.</p><p>Then return.</p><p>Each week, my paid subscribers will receive a full Brocante 75 post from me, part essay, part ritual manual, part practical companion, part domestic sermon from a woman standing in the kitchen she hasn&#8217;t got, with a candle, a notebook, and a raised eyebrow.</p><p>There will be printable pages.</p><p>Devotion cards.</p><p>Reflection prompts.</p><p>Tiny rebellions.</p><p>Milestone badges.</p><p>Substack notes prompts.</p><p><em>A little ceremony here and there, because frankly life is hard enough without making everything look like a spreadsheet in a strop.</em></p><h2>What My Paid Subscribers Will Receive</h2><p><strong>When Brocante75 starts in a week or two, BrocateHome subscribers will receive:</strong></p><p><strong>The Brocante 75 starter pack</strong><br><em>A printable introduction to the whole project, including the five devotions, the Repair Clause, your 75-day tracker, and a little manifesto to pin somewhere visible.</em></p><p><strong>Ten weekly essays and devotion posts</strong><br><em>One for each stage of the journey, lush, practical, tender, funny, cross in the right places, and not remotely interested in turning you into a beige woman with a water bottle.</em></p><p><strong>Weekly printable packets</strong><br><em>Trackers, reflection sheets, ritual cards, devotion pages, tiny rebellion prompts, and domestic maps to help you bring the week into your actual house.</em></p><p><strong>Milestone badges</strong><br><em>Keeper of the Kettle. Mistress of the Surface. Patron Saint of Returning. Defender of the Good Mug. The Woman with a Rhythm. Domestic Revolutionary. Keeper of Herself.</em></p><p>Not gold stars.</p><p>Archetypes.</p><p><em>Obviously.</em></p><p><strong>The closing ribbon ceremony</strong><br>A final post and printable reflection for day seventy-five, so we do not simply stagger over the finish line and wander off. We tie the ribbon. Choose what stays. Decide what kind of woman we are becoming&#8230;</p><h2>Who Is This For?</h2><p>This is for you if you are tired of abandoning yourself.</p><p>If your house feels like it is shouting.</p><p>If your body is screechig and you are trying, not always gracefully, to listen.</p><p>If you are sick of self-improvement that begins from the assumption that you are a problem.</p><p>If you crave rhythm but rebel against routine.</p><p>If you want beauty, but not the sickly kind.</p><p>If you want discipline, but not punishment.</p><p>If you want a home that can hold a real woman, not a performance of one.</p><p>If you have a drawer you fear.</p><p>If you have a mug you are saving for guests.</p><p>If you have forgotten what you like to eat when nobody else is asking.</p><p>If you miss the page.</p><p>If you are lonely in a house full of things.</p><p>If you are ready to begin again without making a whole operatic production out of it.</p><p>Though naturally, if you wish to make a whole operatic production out of it, I will support you. I am not a monster.</p><h2>What this is not</h2><p>Like all things at BrocanteHome it is not about becoming perfect.</p><p>Perfect is brittle.</p><p>Perfect is boring.</p><p>Perfect has never once remembered to defrost the chicken.</p><p>So this isn&#8217;t about before-and-after photographs. There will be no shame theatre here. No one will be asked to present their life as a disgusting prelude to a more acceptable after&#8230;</p><p>This is not about doing all five devotions beautifully every day.</p><p>Some days your twenty minutes will be magnificent.</p><p>Some days your twenty minutes will be moving a pile from one side of the room to the other while muttering darkly about everyone you have ever loved.</p><p><em>Fine.</em></p><p>Some days your beloved plate will be soup with parsley.</p><p>Some days it will be toast eaten sitting down with enough butter to restore your faith in humanity.</p><p><em>Fine.</em></p><p>Some days your page will be an exquisite paragraph.</p><p>Some days it will say, <em>I cannot bear these people today.</em></p><p><em>Also fine.</em></p><p><strong>Truth is often gloriously messy, don&#8217;t you know?</strong></p><h2>The Invitation</h2><p><strong>So here it is.</strong></p><p>Seventy-five days.</p><p>Five devotions a day.</p><p>One sentence of truth.</p><p>A house slowly brought back into conversation.</p><p>A body fed.</p><p>A page kept.</p><p>A nervous system tended.</p><p>An inch of beauty made, on purpose, even when the day has been rude.</p><p>And a woman, you, returning to herself without apology.</p><p>The basket is still on the stairs.</p><p>We start there.</p><p>Come and keep yourself with me.</p><p><strong>Become a paid subscriber to join The Brocante 75 and receive the starter pack, weekly essays, printable devotion packets, community threads, daily prompts and the full seventy-five day journey when we begin&#8230;</strong></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://brocantealison.substack.com/07a218a3&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe Now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://brocantealison.substack.com/07a218a3"><span>Subscribe Now</span></a></p><h3><strong>The Brocante 75 begins on Monday 15th June</strong></h3><p><em>Bring a notebook. Go journal shopping if that&#8217;s what it takes to make you feel committed. Use the good mug.</em></p><p>We are not becoming better women.</p><p><strong>We are simply committing to looking after ourselves.</strong></p><div><hr></div><div class="callout-block" data-callout="true"><h2 style="text-align: center;">Wait! I&#8217;ve Got a Special Offer For You!</h2><p style="text-align: center;">Choose or upgrade to an annual subscription and get the whole year for $75.00 (<em>approx</em>) if you join before Brocante75 begins!</p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://brocantealison.substack.com/07a218a3&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Grab the Discount Here&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://brocantealison.substack.com/07a218a3"><span>Grab the Discount Here</span></a></p></div><div><hr></div><h4><strong>Thank-you&#8230;</strong></h4><h4><em>I truly can&#8217;t wait to get started.</em></h4><h4><strong>Love Alison.x</strong></h4><div><hr></div><h3><strong>Next Post in The Series  &#8594;</strong></h3><div class="digest-post-embed" data-attrs="{&quot;nodeId&quot;:&quot;badcd9d4-d37c-4476-942b-6ebad6b51f09&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;cta&quot;:null,&quot;showBylines&quot;:true,&quot;showDescription&quot;:true,&quot;showImage&quot;:true,&quot;size&quot;:&quot;sm&quot;,&quot;isEditorNode&quot;:true,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;The Brocante75 Manifesto #printable&quot;,&quot;publishedBylines&quot;:[{&quot;id&quot;:122264405,&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Alison May&quot;,&quot;bio&quot;:&quot;This is a love letter to unravelling. Think midlife meltdown meets feminist renaissance, with a splash of ink, a sigh of lavender, and a refusal to stay quiet. 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