Friday, February 3, 2012

i'll know it when i find it.

Do we all have some vague idea of what our future safe space of dreaming-and-scheming, creative projects, licking our wounds, laughing with our favorite characters, and laying our heads to rest will look like?
 
You know, home.
 
The home that when you walk in, you feel like the weight of the world has temporarily floated off to bother someone else for a change. The way your parent's house felt until one day, it didn't.
 
You know the one.
 
It comes in blurry half-frames and fleeting visions. Sometimes you look out the window of your car as you speed by and see a tree, THE TREE, that could someday, someday, provide perfect shade in the backyard of your eclectic little bungalow.
 
At least mine is an eclectic little bungalow, on the water, doused from every angle with the perfect combination of shade from massive trees and sun from the light steeping through. For some people maybe it's a brownstone, or a loft, or a sprawling mass of a structure set against a background of fields upon fields of flowers. But mine, mine is old and small. A place with character. Something that's passed the test of time. Something that needs a little TLC, so I can build a bond, take some sense of pride. A labor of love.
 
When I think of my place, what I'm working to find so I can work for it and perfect it and make it my own, I just feel my shoulders raise up toward my ears and my eyes squint and my mouth press into a little smile. Because I know what it will feel like, what it will sound like, what it will smell like. I have ideas of what I'd like it to look like, but that's not for me to decide, not fully.
 
But when I find it, I'll know.
 
Because it will be home.
 
A place where I will pour glass upon glass of wine and crank up Fleetwood Mac on the record player some nights whilst silly-dancing around with my best friends and laughing until we fall asleep in piles of mismatched blankets upon cushions and couches and beds with the windows open and a breeze whispering through. Have I mentioned the window treatments? Think vintage scarves of all patterns and colors sewn together and draped over a hand-crafted wooden rod. Yes, I dream in detail. And window treatments.
 
It will be a place where I'll come home and sit in my shaded backyard and pull weeds and talk to my plants and cry after a particularly draining day at work. Because no matter what you do, some days are just due for a good cry. God, the garden. So much green. And edible things. And blooms big and small. It will be my greatest pride.
 
It will be a place where I center the main living space around a fireplace and not a tv, because when I live, I like to be engaged and not plugged in. That doesn't mean I'm not going to have TV, because I like watching movies on plasma as much as the next 2012-ite... but really, I don't want to center my life around it.
 
Oh, I will have bookcases upon bookcases. For books. Books for days rainy and days sunny. Books for every occasion. I already have quite the collection, but by then I'll have doubled, tripled the volumes, with built in shelves, artfully displayed. And knick knacks and keepsakes from the travels of my own and those who love me.  But mostly, books. I will be surrounded by books and arty little prints and big colorful posters. 
 
I can see my front porch now. It's a sprawling affair.  And my front door, oh, it will be yellow. Or green. Or purple! I don't even know yet. My house and I haven't met, I'll wait to consult her personality for such a decision. But I can almost see her. She's beautiful. Just knowing she's out there, my little refuge from the world, it makes me feel better. I will find her.
 
 
I can almost see it. I'm so anxious for it to get here.

1 comment:

  1. I'm anxious to help paint walls, and to be invited over for potlucks. And to spend summers on your dock, with mimosas. ily.

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