Whenever I see home stuff I crave but don’t need - be it a French settee upholstered in orange velvet or a Belgian crystal sphere chandelier, I think: “oh, that’s for my alternative universe house” and I then carefully place it inside my Scottish castle, Nantucket salt box or Barcelona loft- next to the other phantom pieces I’ve lustifully accumulated after all these years. Our real floor plans may be limited but the spaces in our heads- at least mine- are boundless and without budget. And it isn’t all about grandeur or aspiration. Sometimes it’s just the opportunity to imagine another threshold to cross- what color you’d paint the door and what kind kind of entry hall would be waiting to receive you.
There’s a strange carriage house perched on a corner of a little street I pass each day after dropping my son off at school. I am enchanted by it’s factory-like shape: the way there are more windows than walls and the ivy that crawls hungrily along the outer brick. I slow each time I pass it, trying to imagine the abundant sun light that must stream in and then myself a professor, coming home after teaching art class, parking my bike in the miniature driveway and then being welcomed by a cat and cheerful geraniums lined along the kitchen counter. I’d kick off my shoes and drape myself down upon the settee and wonder about my upcoming date for Saturday night. After dinner by candlelight at a long wooden table, would we eventually travel upstairs via the metal spiral staircase and lie down on the enormous bed bathed in all that moonlight streaming through the warped window panes? In these alternate universes there are no bills or heart break or Tuesday nights with nothing to do but pick up a remote. There is only the romance of possibilty of all that the rooms can contain. I can see my furniture there in great clarity but I have to squint very hard to put my actual being inside those brick walls. For a moment, I shimmer to life there but quickly disappear, coming back to focus inside my real rooms, ultimately preferring where I already am. Electric bill included.