Open House

Dashing Decay

admin — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:46:56 +0000

Today I brought my son to the deserted, tumbled down stone “palace” along the side of the road he’d been eyeing to use in a dream sequence for his film. As we approached we noticed that the owner was there, his old Chevy pulled alongside the building as it often was on Sundays. My son had been hoping he’d sneak a few shots of his actor outside the property and then we’d move on, but now that seemed impossible. “Actually,it’s a good thing he’s here,” I said, pulling right over, although where he was, though, I couldn’t yet see: the place was crammed with building materials, there was a roof, yet no walls. Instead it was a grand skeleton of columns and immense stone columns which still managed to be impressive, striking an impossible balance between decay and life. A thread of smoke curled into the sky. “He’ll feel complimented we want to use the house in a movie. Trust me.” My son and his actor sat hesitantly in the car while I approached a kind of cave-like entrance. It was dark, everywhere was rubble but rubble with a potential use to create: bags of cement, wood planks, tools, mounds of newspaper, wheelbarrows filled with dirt. A fire glowed in a kind of makeshift fireplace. A stout old man in knit hat and a long sleeved t-shirt fed wood into it sitting on a stool and fed it with small bits of wood. I explained we wanted to film a shot or two for a student film, motioning for my son and his friend to come out of the car. The man sized us up and gave us his approval but first asking how much money the school’s tuition cost a year and if the young actor hoped to make as much money as Clark Gable. As they went off to film, I stayed, feeling as much compelled by manners as curiosity to let the man talk. He came here each Sunday he said, “Because it’s my thing. You know, you have your thing, to have your kids and your husband and this house, it is my thing. You see I used to run a wrecking company and all the stuff we’d cart away, it was invaluable: so I brought it here, to build what I hoped would be a summer house for my siblings but they all died before me.” He eschewed creating his own family because most women “were only interested in lipstick and fancy cars. They wouldn’t understand why I’d want to spend time building this.” It was hard to argue with him- he was both content with his fate (as if he was poised in a villa over-looking Lake Cuomo) and in a time warp my fiery feminism couldn’t begin to mess with. He talked about money fiercely and stubbornly, rubbing over its topic like the round, old stones that lay on the arched ceiling above us, trying to impress upon me how so many people were out to take from him- he had chandeliers, pocketwatches, cars- all in spades at his other house but he trusted no one to pay him what he expected for them.
I walked outside to the garden pagoda he had referenced, built to house picnics with his family one summer day. He didn’t express regret that he never finished it (never once did he explain why he had stopped building the house) but he was happy its half-built structure was there. The white columns stood tall and Scarlett O’Hara-worthy yet they were covered by planks whose purpose was/is I was not sure. I thought of what an apt metaphor for his life this all was: the simultaneous invitation and distrust. The desire to dream and the stubbon realziation that often accompanies it. I wondered how much worrying about his possessions, money and this house had ultimately cost him in his life. He was a loner, apparently with no regrets and yet, the house he had built to entertain others was no more a shelter than a mirage. He had been born with imagination, creative muscles that matched his boldily ones yet at one point, deep distrust had taken over and paralyzed whatever lay in its path. “I can’t decide whether to finish the house or sell it as it is,” he told me, as if in only a few weeks he could get the whole thing in tip top shape. “But if I sold it, I’d worry people would want to change it.” As we left he mentioned that he’d get the garden in shape next weeked and he pointed to an area with two high stone circles, their centers crowded with junk but, their parameters carved out and filled with ridges of dirt. Do you mean, all along here, flowers?” I asked. He nodded with certainty. It seemed as preposteorus as Salvador Dali hiring Martha Stewart. He would then attach that stone table top over there, to the base over there to sit inside the circle and admire his flowers. Far away in a heap of scrap metal, I saw the curved of a stone table top. The base lay god knows where. “You’ll be able to bring that over here, by yourself?…”
“I did all this didn’t I?” he said more factually than proud, as though this house all just risen from the earth, thanks to him, just a few days ago, instead of decades. As if, by attaching the top to that base and adding some flowers, it would be the finishing touch on a orderly, cheerful weekend retreat.
We thanked him and headed to our car. As I passed his Chevy I looked in: it was crammed high with newspapers and boxes. On the front seat sat an enormous plastic salad bowl, with a fork at its bottom and the remains of a salad scattered along its rim. I looked back at the man, who was busily collecting more wood. As I drove away, I couldn’t help to look over at the stone garden circle and wonder where the base to the table was.

Design Blocked

admin — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:46:01 +0000

I saw a decadent red leather lounge chair yesterday and it reminded me of my first boss who- when given a promotion and a snazzy new corner office- spent the remaining time at that job fluffing and fussing her nest to the extent that the office ceased to become a place of work but rather of intention. Assistants would be asked to scour the archives in search of every back issue of the magazine titles she managed so that they could be chronologically arranged in obsessive rows along custom shelves, which were so tall they almost blocked the entrance into the office. Ironically the content of said issues showcased glorious homes from around the world: places where rooms had been rendered into fantastic reflections of the owners’ personality. Unfortunately in this case, so too, did her office. It was all about the preparation to live rather than the living. In the corner, like the cherry on the sundae, was the enormous red leather chair. Much time had been spent deciding on its color, pitch and material. When it finally arrived it seemed to stare out menacingly from its perch, like a caged animal who longs to be taken out and played with. In the many months–and late nights— that followed her promotion, I never saw her once sit in that chair and catch up on her necessary magazine reading (its original intention). There were too many more pressing needs and unexpected emergencies. A year later, the unit she headed was folded and we flowed out from her grasp, both grateful and shaky. As much drama as there was helping her erect her own cozy roof, it did provide one for each of us as well. One thing I was sure of: I’d never spend more time creating than I would using my creation. This was never more proven when many years later I visited a friend who was in the throws of a complicated kitchen renovation. Her husband wanted the sink to face the spectacular ocean view: she wanted it to face the driveway, to ensure viewing of family and friends arriving. Both opinions made sense and yet neither could be compromised. Eventually final construction came to a halt and they got used to just living with the undecided decision, sawdust and all. Here was the opposite of my boss’ scenario yet it was equally problematic. Ultimately was it better to plow straight ahead with too much vigor or stay still in hopes that time would heal hesitation? A few years later, she died tragically young, never to enjoy the view or a visitor again. It is near impossible for me to enter that space— finally finished after her passing— and look at the ocean the same way again.

Pining to Pin

admin — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 19:13:14 +0000

In my first home office about fifteen years years ago, I hung a simple bulletin board on the wall and tacked up images of what inspired me: Joni Mitchell at Woodstock in long, pixie-like pigtails; a dashing Peter Beard holding a baby goat in Montauk wearing nothing but a sarong and a cigarette; a serene living room by John Saladino and a rose from Bunny William’s Connecticut garden as elegantly intimate as her interiors. The images were torn from magazines or postcard racks grabbed in haste from quirky stores around the world. It was the earliest form of pinning, with an unconsciousness intent to display my style consciousness. As time passed, the edges of the images yellowed and curled and the literal dimensions of the board demanded I choose which pictures would be ushered out to make room for the new. I could never downgrade any of them of course, and so the board became an overpopulated mass of blurred color and form, layers of life torn from others to inhabit mine.
Today, thanks to sites like Pinterest, those boards have gone virtual and therefore given people who pine to locate all that makes their heart beat a little faster- be they curtains, purses or Paris- an infinite destination upon which to adhere. When I first joined Pinterest it brought an initial feeding frenzy to hunt and gather all the rooms over the many years which have ever captured my delight but had gotten away. I’d wake up at two am and remember Kelly Wearstler’s living room from her first Los Angeles home, sneak over to the computer- the sweet search enveloping me like a dream- capped off by the delicious victory of pinning it to my “Rooms I Love” board. Real people in the virtual village could then stroll by, stop and admire and perhaps repin. Repinning meant a happy validation of my taste but it wasn’t the ultimate goal. It was more about knowing that my little flock of favorites could now be displayed equally and forever: neither flood, fire nor toddlers’ curious fingertips could ever shake their stature and placement.
Olioboard is another way to manifest one’s imagination a step further: creating rooms down to the throw pillow without having to commit 100% to their realization. Sometimes the exercise of creating our havens: be they nurseries or mancaves- proves as much of a delight- and education-as the reality of them. That you can then click on certain elements from someone else’s two dimensional haven and then have them bought and shipped to live in your real one, feels like the ultimate gesture of generosity between strangers.
These sites offer- even more than savvy technology- the luxury to dream and decorate without ever having to open our wallets. It’s a way to not only attempt to better understand our homes and our universe but, best of all, ourselves.

Common Scent

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:49:37 +0000

When I heard that a beloved great aunt had recently passed away I didn’t envision her face but the smell of her kitchen. She was the matriarch of a large family: many boys and one girl, my play date for many years. Whenever I’d enter that house, I smelled bacon, still lingering from breakfast with the hearty trill of her welcome always not far behind. I recently bought a bath gel simply because my best friend has it and her bathroom resonates with its delicious citrusy smell. Whenever I pour it into my own tub I am steeped in a lifetime of our conversations which I flip through, like a cherished record collection. Scents aren’t just combinations of flowers and spices but time, place and memory. Otherwise why would I have just ordered a perfume based on a scent strip I found in a magazine? I already have “my” perfume. But after I casually swathed it on my wrist I kept being reminded on my very first apartment in Manhattan after college. It had nothing to do with the scents matching up. I didn’t even wear a scent remotely like the one I just ordered. But something about this new perfume transported me back to a time when I wasn’t sure of what was next, only that I was deep in the middle of the present, trying to move forward. I guess it smells a little like hope with topknots of curiosity.

Homeward Bound

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:08:21 +0000

To celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary, my aunt and uncle sent poignant pictures out to their family, not only of their wedding, but of the subsequent journey they took across the country in a VW bus. They were in search of a home and eventually found it, amidst the splendor of the Oregon woods (sadly, now so many cleared) and hovering close to the Pacific. But it’s their artful black and white shot of the front seat of that VW bus that I can’t stop looking at, for its documentation is recognition of its important role in carrying them to a place to sink their tender, young roots. You imagine them sitting in front of that large window as they journied day after day, from far east to far west, the country unfolding right in front of them, ripe for the plucking. That shared space in the front seat- even in their absence - is almost tactile with all ghosts of shared conversations and silent dreaming. There’s no GPS of course and not even a tape deck. Most likely the speedometer was broken. As free spirited as the whole venture seems, it is also clearly weighted by clear-headed intention and the utmost respect for that first place called home. Which this VW bus was. A medallion of some sort dangles from the rearview mirror a gesture to further personalize this shelter on wheels, perhaps a more true reflection of the owners than what the mirror itself would offer. I know their families were not thrilled that they were embarking on a journey towards pre martial cohabitation (it was the early sixties after all) but you have a feeling they never looked back with regret until they found a spot worthy of their union.

Rearrangement

admin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:57:57 +0000

Over the winter holidays I took an extra helping of time inside my boys’ rooms. Their spaces have now become as deft at multi taking as their juvenile dwellers: they are simultaneous Lazy Lairs, Homework Havens and Rock Refuges. They are also command central, way stations where peer conversation continually tugs and explodes at them with blips and beeps from nearby phones and computer screens, reminding them of what they are missing out on. But I stand my ground. I interrupt their Skype discussions to make them try on pants to see if they still fit, bring them their favorite snack or remind them of the time. If they are not too busy, I slip conversation like broccoli into brownies on topics I find juicy: Led Zeppelin, Pablo Picasso, Harriet Beecher Stowe. I am always loving in my vigilance, sometimes entertaining and almost always annoying. But one thing I am definitely also, is secretly assessing: why is that packaging material still on the desk when its contents was removed weeks ago? Why is the remote control on the bureau when the television is downstairs? When did the left hand corner of that poster become unfurled? Did the new dog just chew the bottom of the wood bed frame or has it always been like that? It’s not that I expect things to look picture perfect. It’s that I know I can’t fully work, create or relax in my own lair if I know that wastebasket is on the brink of fullness, if there’s a stack of unpaid bills (the equivalent of bad homework) next to the computer or the bedside water carafe isn’t filled, so how, in the world could they? The point is they can. They see no issue with going to bed with a hockey stick on the other half. Or starting a term paper with an old banana peel curled next to the key board. They can and even thrive doing so, mismatched, stinky socks on the floor and all. I know it’s totally my issue but still…whenever they head out to a practice, a play date even (god help me) sometimes just the bathroom, I still can’t help creeping in just a few footsteps over the threshold. A quick tweak here, a sweep there. There, that’s better, isn’t it? It can never be too transformative or they’d notice. But then if they don’t notice the change then what’s the point of doing it? I can’t really answer that now. But admitting it is half the battle. Isn’t it?

Room with a View

admin — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 23:43:19 +0000

Visiting Paris today reminded me when visiting it once as a teenager and zooming thru its streets one night in a cab with a friend who had been born and raised there. Part of an elegantly connected and cultured European family, she could swear as eloquently in English as she could order drinks for us in French and I enjoyed visiting her parents sprawling apartment in the 7th arrondissement. The rooms filled with modern furniture and family pictures stylishly snapped on beaches in Biarritz, made my home in the hills outside Boston feel positively provincial. In her room she still displayed the dozens of miniature perfume bottles she had collected as a girl, a hobby that put my childhood china animals to shame. As she got ready for the night, I noticed a picture of her and her equally dashing sister gamely dressed up for a costume party which required wearing both leather and lace. My mind flashed home where my two brothers were no doubt tossing a lacrosse ball back and forth to one another on our lawn. As our taxi sped thru the Paris night, I gamely listened as each bridge or corner bistro reminder her of another juicy story worth recounting. If she were visiting me, I thought, what material would I feel worthy enough to share? Here the city seemed to pulsate not only with the glamourous past but ripe possibility just on the horizon. I however, would be returning home in a few days time doomed to always return as a mere tourist. This city I longed to love would only ever embrace me as a voyeur, I was now pretty sure of it. I looked up at the imposing top floors of creamy white buildings lining the Siene. A penthouse perched on one ornate rootop came into view as our taxi passed paused just beneath. Its outstretched rooms seemed to glow from within with an unparalleled luxury. I felt my self disappear and morph up there, looking out across its terrace wrapped in something both leather and lace, waiting for a man I had seen cross the street earlier that afternoon, a dapper striped scarf wrapped just so around his neck. “Oh that apartment,” said my friend instinctively reading my upward eyes. I was suddenly back in the traffic far below. I awaited to hear how she had spent many a night kissing with Notre Dame like a jealous lover as her backdrop. I was starting to picture the wallpaper…the glossy black floors…
“I’ve dreamt about getting inside it ever since I was a girl. Just to see it, you know?” I nodded. She sighed. “But I never have. Anyway. I’m so glad you’re here.” The taxi moved on and the view was replaced.

Outage

admin — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:57:56 +0000

When a person strips off their clothes or an accessory— even if it is just to remove their sunglasses— it is said that they become more intimate to the eye of the beholder. That, as more skin is bared, we are getting closer to the essence of their being. This week, living without power, (with a trusty kick-in from a cranky generator) I realized it is the opposite with our homes. Less becomes less, not more. I am not speaking of a home’s fundamentals, such as water, heat and electricity but the layers we weave throughout its space: music, flowers, the harmony of order and connection of technology, that rightfully brand our domain as ours. Like a bad game of dominos, if the power topples, then so too must fall these little luxuries by the wayside. No listening to Brahms at breakfast. Scented candles eschewed for more practical votives. Water for glasses, not vases. One by one, as these frivolities fade so too does our home, now thought of as a shelter we are grateful for. From the outside it looks the same, from within it feels entirely different.
As the light and power men study the fallen cable outside our home and tell me it needs to be plugged back from the pole along the road directly into the house, I imagine with that connection, the throbbing rejuvenation not just of power, but link back to our daily selves. However, watching my sons- stripped of the continual suck of their computers which tend to pull them into opposite rooms at night- huddled together watching a fire last night, I am reminded that the presence of love is the house’s most dominant need. Without it you might as well rip its roof right off.

Custody

admin — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:49:26 +0000

In most divorces, the collected treasures of the soon-to-be torn union, get divvied up. You get the kids on Christmas, I get Thanksgiving. The dogs stay with me: you never liked them anyway. But the house, which was once the very protector of this marriage, now becomes a symbol of the sacred union’s very downfall. A symbol too symbolic now that the once-haven may now feel like hell. So while often one spouse will “get” the house, many times what was once so prized, is put up for sale. Since neither party will claim it, it must be unloaded into the universe for someone else to come along and claim it as the launch pad for their dreams.
I recently saw a listing for a farmhouse for sale, which I recognized from the pages of a shelter magazine years ago. The family had transformed an old farmhouse into an idyllic place where children, dogs, horses, flowers frolicked and thrived. Beams of rich sunlight warmed the rough-hewn floors through high windows draped with velvet-y curtains. A picture of the husband carrying a large red umbrella over his gorgeous wife- a la Picasso at the beach with Francoise Gilot- enthralled me. Here was devotion paired with spontaneity. Here they were in a forever place that hummed with the very heartbeat of a family and their beloved possessions. Except it wasn’t forever. An article mention that the couple had divorced- how long ago I did not know- the children were now teenagers. Clearly she had kept the house but was now moving on.
I clicked through the images of the property, heartbroken for everyone involved. How could they have possibly allowed this to happen? What - or whom- could be worth sacrificing such an Eden for?
I tried to console myself that perhaps the divorce had been amicable and each parent had now each found an even more beautiful place where their children could eventually raise their families and new memories with double the pleasure. Perhaps, but most likely not. Divorces are never clean down the middle and foundations may be poured in a day but rarely built upon so quickly. Perhaps, I told myself, you were more attached to this image of perfection than they were. Perhaps all parties are moving on with equal parts regret, sadness and hope and now you should get over it too. It’s not fair to pronounce someone else’s reality as fantasy and then punish them when you find it was all as normal as your best day and your worst.
I scrolled through the online sales brochure a final time, cringing at how vulnerable the house now looked, its sumptuous privacy now exposed for all to see and lust for their own. The susceptibility of property we claim as our own continued to strike me. We walk amongst the rooms we take so much pain and pride to build and decorate, our little fortresses against the world. And often it doesn’t take a fire, an earthquake or a flood to bring it all crashing down. Sometimes, it’s just us.

Off Limits

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:25:17 +0000

From the time we are old enough to understand that our bedrooms belong to us, we march through life with a constant sense of highlighting what is rightfully OURS: our side of the room, our lockers, our apartments, our cars, our front lawns, our homes…Through signs—both written and understood— we tell the world to please stay out unless invited in. And the world, obeys. For the most part. Little brothers, neighbors and total strangers will often trespass—sometimes knowingly and sometimes without fault— over these boundaries and it is up to us to respond in a manner that suits the infringement. When we were young, it was a taped piece of paper embedded with the crayoned message KEEP OUT. As we get older, the signs become more official. I recently ordered a sign from a sign maker in our town. I wanted it to be discreet, polite and yet firmly remind people that our dock was private and that the dock belonging to the inn next door, was down THAT WAY. I was tired of feeling guilty telling people—gamely posing for a picture with the sunset behind them— that this dock was private. Often they’d look at me, perplexed. “It’s just one picture,” they’d say. And what could I say? For them it was a singular moment. For me, it happened multiple times within a weekend. One time a woman had spread out an entire blanket on our dock and was happily making jewelry. I was coming from a harried day and watched her for a moment, envying her focus and serenity. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But this dock is private.” She apologized and continued to string her beads. It got to the point where every time I drove past our dock, my heart raced in anticipation of who I would find there. Was I secretly enjoying these encounters of territorialism? My husband wasn’t bothered in the least. A close friend— when I told her that occasionally I’d find a fisherman or honeymooners (one time making out on the grass right in front of the dock, their motor cycles propped on our mailbox) exclaimed, “That would drive me crazy! I’d so put up a sign.” A sign had never occurred to me. But the next day I ordered one. I felt strangely indulgent telling the signmaker my desired specs: dark green so it would blend with the grass. The wording of the white letters had to be firm yet not mean. Since we put it in the grass, we have had nary a visitor. So the sign was a success. Or was it? Is part of the thrill of belonging somewhere knowing that it is entirely yours? Or is anything really all ours? Within minutes of bringing our new dog into our home, he jumped on sofas, beds and merrily violated all the invisible fences we had placed around all the things inside our home that were strictly belonging to the humans. He looked at us compassionately when we said NO. And kept right on jumping. I remembered watching my father place No Trespassing signs at the base of some wooded property we owned when I was a girl. Every Saturday night teenagers would loot it with post-party trash and every Sunday morning my father’s sign got larger and angrier, all to no avail. So after awhile, his role of enforcer was reduced to trash collector.
Whatever comes from the outside into our world- be it an errant stranger, an animal, a family member or, god forbid, a force of nature beyond our control- let it help us realize that nothing is ever completely ours despite what documents may confirm. We are always vulnerable. It is the way we react to our vulnerability that ultimately helps us cope with our place in the world.