Beautiful Home Spaces...

There is something about using fabric, string, lace & pieces of paper to build, shape and decorate a living space that makes me feel, physically sometimes, like everything would be fine in the world if I were surrounded by that living space all the time. Yesterday we went over to ayla's, & as it turns out sarah's, house--I think it is called the tart pan. Well, Liz, Thomas & I went over to their house after having some delicious ethiopian food and as we got the tour I was impressed at the soothing greens/yellows of the house but when we went upstairs into sarah's attic room I got that feeling that everything would always be okay up in that attic. She had diligently collected some of the most beautiful patterns, textures and colors of fabric. Pieces of pleasantly colored, shaped & designed paper and packaging were hanging from strings laced across the living space. Keys dangled in singles and bunches in between the paper and fabric. Mirrors reflected a part of the room like a picture frame would. Her bed was surrounded by large billows of fabric that created what seemed like, from across the room, a cavern for sleep. I couldn't stop thinking how I would love to have so many beautiful things surrounding me and brushing my shoulders and face when I walked near them or woke up under them.

A young little lady, lola--i think, came over to their house for dinner later that night and as sarah took her on the tour I anticipated her going upstairs and imagined what her reaction must have been to the attic room. I think she must have thought it was magical. I know I would have at her age or really, did, at my age, as cheesey as that sounds.

Sarah's room reminded me of a home that I was trusted enough to see at one of our stops in the redwoods of N. California. The people that had built the structure or at least maintained it recently had done much the same things to their space as Sarah has done to her attic room. The bed was enclosed by beautiful, warm blankets and lace. Pieces of paper fluttered in the breeze as they hung from twine in between the silver ware and cooking utensils. The windows of the tarp/wood pole structure were graced with long pieces of green sheer and green lace fabric that when you looked through them they only enhanced the view of the trees on the otherside, made them look like a story picture. I just kept telling Luke, like I kept telling Liz after seeing Sarah's room, I want to live in that--I would be so happy living in that. But then I think about how much I'd have to collect, how much I'd have keep around and I threw out so much before we started the tour it would be years before I could assemble anything that meant much to me, a room that wasn't just a reflection of some concertedly thought out and manufactured notion of an identity I wish I had. So...it all goes backt to identity formation, I see. But, maybe it also just goes back to having something beautiful to comfort me and make me feel at home.