Twiggy Revisited

I wish we had a picture of our latest project. The other day, following a suggestion from a friend, I decided to look for an antler chandelier to replace the out-moded one that hangs above the dining table. Unwilling to chalk up nearly a thousand dollars for a white tail design, I tried to think what resembles antlers. Branches! Twigs! (The ceiling of the house is wooden planks so I thought breaking up the lines with curvilinear forms would make the room appear less rigid and masculine.) After doing a little research, I found a how-to guide for making a branch chandelier. It seemed easy enough -- or so I thought.

After convincing Chris that this would be a good idea (the best time to do this is after a long day of work when there is less likely a chance for protest), we hunted for fallen branches. After arranging them on the ground to a desired width, we tied them together with thin wire. It's just a test, I told him. I wanted to see what this would look like. We brought the tangled bundle of firewood inside and hung it just below the existing chandelier. Wow, I thought, Welcome to Camp Wawona.

It didn't seem to fit the space. We needed branches from a noble tree instead of the gnarled and grey limbs we plucked from the ground. We failed well, I told Chris. Even though we still don't have the chandelier of my dreams we had a good laugh and worked together.

Sharing the Table

(Former Dining Table at Pierce Avenue)

Even though I've settled into my new home without any snags I've been aware of the subtle tug of war that goes on when two people begin to share a space. Chris is gracious letting me do whatever I want, although I still run ideas by him. He was impressed with my closet organization skills having transformed one scary cave into a fully functional holding cell for cleaning supplies and outdoor accouterments. "I didn't know there were even shelves in there," proclaimed one awe-struck roommate when she opened the door.

Yesterday I tackled the kitchen with Chris' mom while he was at work. She and I shared several what-is-this glances as we consolidated 100 beer glasses (most obtained from the local brewery) and dumped many bags of expired canned food. We took down a collection of photos on the side of the refrigerator for Chris to sort through. Initially, to my dismay he kept them all and rearranged them to resemble collages my friends and I used to make when we were thirteen. After a while, there was something comforting in seeing it.

Last night a dear Oxford friend came over for dinner. He's working an hour south of Atlanta for the summer and I was eager to see him. For years, he's dined at one of my many kitchen tables and sampled everything from coq au vin to homemade donuts. I had recently made preserved lemons, so I prepared Morroccan-stlye cod with cinnamon scented lentils on a bed of saffron couscous. For dessert, I whipped up a batch of coconut maccaroons, which I paired with a trio of ice creams and sorbet (mango, ginger, and coffee.) While Chris swooned over the meal, reaching for my hand under the table between bites, I was reminded of how food sustains us and keeps us going. For so long food was a way for me to reach out to people (and in some cases attract others), but now it is something that nurtures love and friendship.

She Was Here

(The Lady of the House, Pierce Avenue)

We departed Saturday. After a long week of packing, a group of my guy friends arrived to load the moving truck so Chris and I could hit the road in the afternoon. I had little time to dwell on leaving though. A few days earlier, my friend and surrogate Oxford mother Elaine passed away unexpectedly. Her funeral services were Saturday morning.

Whenever I would leave Oxford, I always made it a point to say goodbye to Elaine at the local bookstore where she worked. We'd hug and I'd mischievously wave goodbye. Upon my return, I would visit her again to dish on my adventures while we shared a cup of coffee and she smoked a cigarette. She encouraged me and listened -- never judging -- as I told her the stories that might make my "real" mom cringe.

At the visitation services on Saturday, there were cards imprinted with an image of Elaine along with brief paragraph about her life. Elaine was homemaker it read (in addition to working part-time at Square Books). Despite the fact that she was well on her way to completing a Ph. D. in History when she met her husband more than thirty years ago, she gave herself to being a wife and mother. Above all else she loved her husband and children. "Homemaking" was her calling.

Home was an important part of Elaine's life. It was a haven for when her children returned to Oxford, a place of gathering, and for hiding from the world. It was filled with the past: photographs, knick-nacks, and other things handmade by Elaine or her children. With her passing, home takes on another meaning to me. It is a memorial to our existence that quietly proclaims, "I was here."

(In Memoriam Elaine Cremaldi)

The Corner of Our Universe

(The Corner of Our Universe: Chris' Kitchen in Atlanta)

So this is it. A week ago I began dismantling my house at Pierce Avenue. As if it weren't difficult enough to deconstruct my HOME, I decided to torture myself with a yard sale.

Southerners share a particular penchant for yard sales. In fact, the largest of them runs along the I-127 corridor just a few hours away from Oxford. Last weekend in town there were 25 yard sales listed in the classified section of the local paper. My listing was among them:

1___ Pierce Avenue. 7 AM. Furniture. Art. Household Goods. Everything goes!

It was optimistic, and at first -- as I watched the sun rise over the neighborhood -- I was too. Then people began to arrive. They picked things up and I watched as they scrutinized how my belongings might fit into their lives. What do you with these?, one woman asked holding up a tart plate. I wanted to tell her about the roasted pears with marscapone or the potato gratin I once baked in them, but as I was about to speak she proclaimed that they would become saucers for her houseplants. She bought all six.

Inside my house these banal parts of my life made sense, but on the lawn they were disparate. Is context the key to feeling good about the arrangement and meaning of things that comprise our homes? I hope so. Next week my boyfriend (yes, the one I fell madly for at our bestfriends' wedding) and I will be living together. We'll be merging our two worlds -- both of which are sharply defined -- into one space. I love him for wanting to share his corner of the universe with me. Home, no doubt, will grow deeper with meaning.

In the moonlight, the color and scent of the wisteria, seems so far away

'tsuki ni tooku oboyuru fuji no iroka kana'
-Yosa Buson (1716-1784)

I learned of this purple beauty after watching the English film Enchanted April. Wisteria and England are intertwined in my mind. When I see this woody vine, I want to brew a pot of tea.

My mother is half-English. There was no prescribed teatime at our house, but once she surprised us with a traditional afternoon tea. My first real one was in Peterborough, England. My cousins marveled at how many sugar cubes I dropped into my cup. Then they laughed as I drowned a scone in Devonshire cream and strawberry jam. I left not a crumb.

The tradition of teatime is no longer in vogue (unless you are like Moby and open a tea shop in Manhattan.) In fact, one English citizen was so concerned that the tradition would be forgotten that he sponsored an "afternoon tea" legacy for the National Trust, England's version of their preservation society. I worked there for a few months after college. Every day at 4 o'clock we sipped tea and nibbled on one of the many gourmet treats from the resident pastry chef.

Aside from the crumb cake, the thing I remember most was the conversation.

You can make tea time even sweeter by making a treat to go along with it. For my solo tea last weekend, I whipped up some date almond biscotti with ingredients I had on hand. You can modify this simple recipe to whatever ingredients are in your pantry.


Image source: Domino Magazine

The Good in Goodwill

(Our dogs get along, so why can't we?)

"We respect a style that can move us away from what we fear and towards what we crave: a style which carries the correct dosage of our missing virtues." - Alain DeBotton, The Architecture of Happiness

If you haven't heard, I'm moving to Atlanta (which makes move number eleven.) I've been living alone in Oxford for the last year and have enjoyed it. I hang pink curtains without protest, obsessively clean without being called neurotic and never have to hear the drone of a television because I choose not to own one.

My relocation to Atlanta presents a situation which many of us have experienced: moving into another person's home. It's terrifying and exciting at the same time. In my case, it's the home of my boyfriend. In the past, I've lived with women who eventually become friends, but either way the emotions of sharing a space are similar.

How can we learn to better live with each other? I read last night that the sharing of a meal is one of the most important ways to nurture relationships between people who live together. I think of many of the meals I shared with Katy, my housemate who recently
married and moved to France. Bowls of pasta and salad provided the canvas for conversation about love, happiness, and dreams. The same goes for Chris, who like me, prefers to stay at home and cook. At home, there's no competition from clanging dishes and loud diners.

Learning to like what we contribute to our homes is another story. At first, Katy didn't love the art I hung around the house we shared, but it grew on her. I wasn't enamored with her futon but it became a cozy place for me to sleep when my bedroom was too cold. We grew to appreciate the things each other loved, and today, I miss her French memorabilia that covered the house.

Alain DeBotton asks, "Why do we change our minds about what we find beautiful?"

The answer: We learn to appreciate another person's contribution to our world. If you don't adore something, see it with a fresh pair of eyes. (And if all else fails, there is always Goodwill.)

Anti-Clutter is Anti-Southern

(Clutter is such an unpleasant sight that I will spare you any illustration of it.)

With spring around the corner, there is one thing on my mind: A clean, fresh house.

I am convinced that an orderly home ushers in new ways of thinking and inspires healthy living. Several years ago, a friend gave me a copy of Simplify Your Life by Elaine St. James. In addition to whittling your wardrobe down to a palette of three colors and limiting lunch dates, she stresses keeping a clutter-free house.

Clutter is an interesting word. It's from the Middle English word cloteren which mean "to clot" and its modern usage suggests a state of confusion. The word is often used to convey a state of mind or the condition of a place -- usually the home.

In an effort to avoid clogged -- or clotted -- arteries, we limit the amount of bacon and butter we consume, but yet we don't limit the amount of stuff we put in our homes. In doing so, we thwart the creative process. (Anyone who has ever tried to write at a cluttered desk will understand.) For some, the problem stems from anxiety of parting with the past, but for most of us, it's simply laziness. While there are organizations to help the extreme cases of clutterers (check out Clutters Anonymous), the majority of us just need to get out of in front of the TV or stop procrastinating, or both.

In the South, people have a lot of stuff. Several houses come to mind, and in fact, when the New York Times wrote about one particular southern family, the description of their home is not without the reference to the amount of stuff on their walls, shelves, tables, etc:

If there were a publication called Southern Home and Book, the _______ place would be the editorial template. There’s a big wrap-around porch typical of antebellum manors, and the downstairs hall is given over to floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The décor exhibits the eccentricity and faded gentility Northerners associate with Southerners; in the parlor, which Ms. _______ calls the “critter room” because of animal-related objects like an armadillo basket and a stuffed bobcat, stands a wobbly-sounding piano, topped by a toy talking monkey.

I think the difference between what these people do -- namely, displaying their collections -- is different than someone keeping every issue of the New Yorker since 1980. (I know someone who does that too.) When a collection no longer has meaning, if it becomes so covered in dust that we can only make out its silhouette, it's time to reconsider the objects in our home. We must ask ourselves if we are we defining them or if they are defining us?

This weekend, in honor of spring, pick a room -- or start small with a closet -- and begin unclogging the arteries of your home.