Sometime during the Before Times (that is, before COVID), I realized a random Tuesday evening at home sometimes felt like a Saturday. Some indefinable combination of novelty, joy, activity, and conversation would make the hours between work and bed feel like a whole day unto itself. Did I work earlier today? No, that was some other time.
I have reflected on that moment of recognition frequently, in the past few months. I am emphatically no longer as recharged on a weeknight as I am on a weekend. But still, this home and this life nourish me.
When I was packing up to move out of the home I shared with my first husband — the house that I lived in from 21 to 31 — I got the advice to treat moving like an expedition. What equipment would I need to set up my new life. I had a vivid idea of what that “new life” would look like. I thought about all the parts of me that “didn’t fit” with my ex, those inconvenient aspects of the self that I stopped expressing to reduce conflict. I wanted a house decorated like the one I grew up in, maximalist but curated, with charming old things, and books.
From that house, I moved to a beige shoebox rental house on 30th street. It had dark taupe walls, and shag taupe carpet, and almost no windows in the main living room. But it had a glorious big back yard, with a deck. And the door to the back yard was off the master bedroom. The kitchen was built to be “eat in”, and i set it up with a fantastic work area made of a stainless steel prep table and wire shelving. It had black and white lineoleum floors, and sunny south-facing windows.
That house became a home, for a time. I organized my book shelves, and (after living there half a year), hung art. I bought blue rugs to cover the beige walls. I set up a pavilion on the deck. It was right at the nexus of several trails and parks. I could hear the baboons at the zoo when I lay in my hammock. On summer evenings, I would walk over to the Sunken Gardens, and lay in the thick grass.
While I lived there, I reread journals I’d written in the old house, in which Ifantasized about what my life would look like if I were able to live by my own preferences. My life, in that house on 30th street, mirrored those dreams I had for myself before.
Giving that up to move in with Erik required a bit of a leap of faith: that I would still have a home that reflected myself. That I would not be required to make myself smaller to fit in our home. (My major condition was that one of the three bedrooms be “my space” whereI can have my things as I wish, and be an introvert.)
We have now shared this house for just about a year. A year ago, I was moving out of the house on 30th street, and we were painting and patching floors here. Mid-October was the first night we spent here. And it is a home that brings me so much joy.
The natural light and the layout are good bones. There is room to be together, and rooms to be apart. And our taste complements one another. Together, we have curated a marvelous collection of the quality and the kitsch.
As I looked around our living room tonight, I was struck with a grateful, full heart. Here is the new couch we looked for for an entire year. There is the telescope Erik got me for my birthday. Here is the detritus from a sewing project last weekend. As I looked around the room, I saw a home (and a relationship) where I not only had room to show up with my whole self, but my partner celebrated that fact. I feel like in the way we style our home, and the way we live our lives, we create space that is somehow greater than the sum of its parts.
In These Trying Times, that is a priceless resource.
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