Category Archives: home

Dec18

Big, Beautiful Questions…

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Ahhhhh….the wisdom of not knowing, yes…perhaps the greatest gift of age. “Very little makes sense to me these days…” she says. The world is crazier and crazier than I ever could have imagined. How will we navigate these atrocities to our collective soul? The only way I know to be is curious.

Tiokasin Ghosthorse reminds me to change my inner language, to think like a child again. The Lakota language does not contain nouns. There are no words to define us, only verbs. We are all in a state of becoming. I require constant reminding of this. I do know how to live intuitively. Fifty-five years of working with the tarot has helped with that; I hate to think where I’d be without it. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Simple, not easy.

Intuition is the only thing that ever saved me. It is intregal to the creative process. I’ve said for decades that “ultimately, it is the artists who will save us.” It is. The writers, the painters, the musicians, those who live intuitively. Einstein knew it. The stoics knew it. Toni Morrison knew it: “Your life is already artful – waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art.”

It’s not too late and I am not too old. Bonnie Garmus published her first novel at the age of sixty-five. After 98 rejections. She knew something and didn’t back away from what she didn’t know. Julia Cameron teaches the wisdom of not knowing in her series The Artist’s Way. It’s a system for creative recovery – not a how to on being an artist. It’s not about producing a thing, a product, a finished piece! It’s about learning to live like a child again. Vulnerable. Curious. Open-hearted. Available to intuition – to hearing the divine speaking within you.

“…forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in…” Leonard Cohen wrote in his brilliant Anthem.

“…the less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” – Indigo Girls

Dec17

A Little Christmas Bonus

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Cathy B. Graham is one of my favorite artists, not least of all because she is inspiring and funny. She re-invented herself in her sixties with her illustrations and her two books; Second Bloom and Full Bloom. They are among my favorites. Her tablescapes are wonderfully whimsical.Notice the watercolor paintings in the dining room and throughout the home; those are her originals. She decorates with vegetables and food and flowers and toys and….she also designed the linens, the invitations, the dishes, the book illustrations….there isn’t anything she can’t do. Let her remind us all to let our inner child play and be delighted in everything we do!

Dec15

The Perpetual Arranger

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“…you are the perpetual arranger,” said a childhood friend one day many years ago. It is true that I am constantly changing the furniture layout, the menagerie of items, the plants indoors and out, the accoutrement of life. C’mon – you do it, too, whether you are conscious of it or not. We are the curators of our own space. It is a thankless struggle when we are raising children, but it is innate. Now in my later years it is an act of pure delight. Don’t put that there! That goes over here…see?!

My darling mother used to say, “I’m just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” How many times I’d been astonished and befuddled by how she managed a big house full of five children (six if you count my father, who certainly qualified.) We would laugh, but I always had the same reply: “It matters, Mom. The arrangement of the deck chairs matter as long as we’re standing here on deck.”

A friend recently confided that her mother thinks her house is cluttered. I’ve been told that about my homes since my early 20’s. But let me tell you something about my friend’s house. The house itself is beautiful, but there is a less apparent component: I walk in and I FEEL an energy shift. She arranges her home with INTENTION. Like myself, she believes her home is her sanctuary; a living altar. I’ve already asked her if I may come film a short video for the blog after the holidays. I’d like to investigate this process with several people whose homes I admire for different reasons.

In design terms, we are maximalists. I am just as disheveled by clutter as anyone, but clutter is not useful nor attractive. And there are ways to live with the belongings you love without them becoming visual clutter. There are specific ways to do that, and we will explore those here in the coming weeks.

The internet is – pardon me – cluttered – with videos about clutter. Believe me, I’ve watched them discerningly. I’ve read the books (glad to share my favorite) and yes, clutter is a symptom of PTSD. It is both indicative of and perpetuates mental unrest. But most of the approaches I have found fall short of long term solutions; they address the symptom rather than the cause. Have we not learned better yet? We’re seeing the manifestation of this in our health care system. Yes, recognizing a problem is the beginning of finding a cure. We’ve got this.

I love my stuff. I love my home. AND, I love my health, mentally and physically. Health is a lifelong goal I will not compromise (shall we talk boundaries here yet?!) The goal is also beauty, inside and out. Health and beauty are two sides of the same coin. Beauty is a sacred affirmation to our spirit, to God, that we are thankful for the grace in our lives. We are paying attention. We are outgrowing survival mode. We are committed to life. Can I get a witness?!

But beauty is entirely personal. AND, I insist – NOT based on economics. You can live a beautiful life in a beautiful place with or without money. Stick with me and I’ll prove it. (I’ve made some pretty cool decorations out of the plastic netting the onions came in.)

What are your seven favorite things at home?

“Nothing is interesting unless it is personal.” – Billy Baldwin

Dec11

The Temple of My Aloneness

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Almost a decade ago I began this blog, meant to be a lifestyle blog, and ultimately an expression of what home has meant to me. But it has often been about the process of my life, about personal growth and healing. It turns out that “home” means something different to each of us, and has common threads that connect us…and that we all FEEL home within. We feel beauty and appreciate it differently – but we all feel it – physiologically and psychically. Comfort is a visual sense of beauty as much as it is physical. Our spirit recognizes an uncomfortable environment as dysfunction; something is off. It matters to our well being. Let’s explore this further in the days ahead, especially as the long dark winter sets in here where I live.

A craving for beauty has driven my life forward when nothing else could. Color excites me, greenery makes me feel alive. Music and birdsong open my heart and the floodgates of tears, both of delight and grief. I’ll welcome it all.

This morning I had seven young deer in my yard. The past year-and-a-half have brought physical struggles with Lyme disease for me, which the deer carry. I will learn to protect myself, but I will not run them out. These deer all looked like young adolescents. Deer hunting season ended a week ago and my guess is that the adults of the herd are gone now. I can’t imagine living on a planet where you are hunted.

I’m using this video to help illustrate some of the ideas I want to explore here with you. Namely, what are the elements that create a sanctuary home – and WHY is this an important objective? I think it’s actually an innate motivation for us all. Pay attention to how you feel watching this – how are you affected by the soft colors and the imperfect surfaces? Sarah Stanley is looking for her home to “lifts the spirits and stir the soul.” A comfortable home is never perfect. Welcome to The Fable:

“And I thought this is the good day you could meet your love, this is the grey day someone close to you could die. This is the day you realize how easily the thread is broken between this world and the next…this is the bright home in which I live, this is where I ask my friends to come, this is where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love. This is the temple of my adult aloneness and I belong to that aloneness as I belong to my life. There is no house like the house of belonging.” – David Whyte, The House of Belonging

Dec9

Be Very Afraid…

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She’s afraid of beige…I so get that. Beige is a euphemism for mediocrity. Mediocrity scares me. It has frightened me away from writing, here and elsewhere. It has frightened me away from painting. But ya know what? Screw that…I will turn 70 in a few months. I’m tired of being afraid – of anything. I’ve lost people that I don’t know how to live without. I’ve lost beloved pets – some of my best life companions, shitloads of money, my sanity more than once…

When I began this blog many years ago I was grieving heavily. I still am. I’ve come to understand that grief is part of my everyday life, and I am so good with that. It’s a portal to an open heart and a remarkable way to live more fully.

Since you have wandered here today, please come back soon. I’m going to explore this world again and I would relish your company, and your input. I plan to write and share ideas, music, books, and most importantly, inspiration. I need more of it, and don’t we all?

“…the insidious, evil, creeping taupe…” – Alexandra Stoddard

“Do something, Susan, even if it’s wrong.” – my Mom, Doris

Dec3

The Willow’s Bow

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“This is the bright home in which I live, this is where I ask my friends to come, this is where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love. There is no house like the house of belonging.” – David Whyte

Well, I wanted to write a blog post about the fabulous home of designer Thomas O’Brien showcased in the latest video by Quintessence. But I’m fighting back tears…it has sparked childhood memories of sliding down the banister of my grandparents huge old Tudor in Detroit, shaking out cornstarch on the linoleum so our feet would slide when we danced the Twist, and of watching scary movies at a friend’s renovated old colonial in Birmingham where I used to dog sit the beagles Liberty, Justice and Freedom, and of the smell of old polished wood and ancient roses…and life.

My parents bought a rambling Cape Cod when we five kids were little. It was old by 1960’s standards; the architect had built it for his mother in 1926. I loved that home for many reasons, including the hidden staircase from inside my sister’s bedroom closet to the attic. And the faerie-sized garret doors perfect for squirreling through to hide. But I remember playing hide and seek outdoors most of all, crawling inside the peony shrubs that lined the 400′ lawn between the house and the Detroit River. They were so old, stems so woody, that they were hollow in the center, a natural fort of branches. They had been planted when the house and gardens were new as a frame inside the majestic willow sentinels. Those trees were taller than the fourth story of the house (where my room was in the eaves) and drifted lazily down to the grass. They whispered to me at dusk that everything would be alright; I swear they bowed to me every sunrise. They kept my tender heart swathed in hope and beauty.

As the house let sway the hours of the day, activity increased around me. I heard the movement of a family, sometimes peaceful, sometimes in glorious song together, often engaged in a personal war, always a family. The willows were still. Downstairs my father or my sister practiced on the grand piano in the living room hours on end. Their repetition, their mistakes, unnerving then, are now fond remembrances.

Such an enchanted life we all live, whether or not we realize it in this moment. I am grateful for all of it, all of the struggle and the beauty. Here, I get a sense of it all rushing back to me. I love watching and listening to these two. Thomas is obviously happy to be sharing the home he truly loves. Susanna Salk always puts a smile on my face. She’s such a “tourist” – she gawks and is demonstratively awestruck – as we all would be. And she’s paying attention! There is no pretension or affectation.  She admits she’s embarrassed at just noticing the fireplace two hours into her visit! They both make me feel more creative and more alive by their inspired way of life. Watch closely, you will see the willows in the garden bowing…

 

Oct3

Chien Lunatique

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This house has been one of my “all-time favs” also…this artist has got it goin’ on. You know she’s living life to the fullest. Susanne gets it: it’s deeply personal. Not being a drinker, I don’t know what much of this stuff is that she’s talking about – but I DO drink Limeade…and am a coffee-holic. I’ve always made coffee ice cubes so my iced coffee doesn’t get diluted. I’m serious.

Anyway, I maintain that all “true beings” love color, Lulu, and that we make far too many compromises in our own love homes. My home is a love home – I love my home, my land, my pets, my bed, my memories, my time here , my sweet, sweet life…

“Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment.” – Claude Monet

Sep5

Eat, Pray, Crib…

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Elizabeth Gilbert is an American icon, of course, and certainly one of my heroes. As an aspiring memoirist, I have followed her career since Eat, Pray, Love made her a household name. Here she takes us on a silly tour of the house she was selling in 2012. Gorgeous house! (Great artwork, too.) Damn. Missed it, or as Maxwell Smart would say, “missed it by that much…”

For some reason she is uncharacteristically giggly here, but nonetheless, stick with it to see the magical details built in to the “SKY-BRARY”, and the gardens. Not yet in bloom, I can only imagine how glorious they are in the summer.

We know much heartbreak would visit Liz in the years to follow, and yet still somehow the writing that would inspire us all to keep going. I only wish her well, and that her recent living spaces have proven worthy shelters for such a magnificent spirit.

It’s a humid, hot day in northwestern Michigan, but there is a wind, and so I must have the windows open. I love my home; I love my hills…could I ever leave? Oh, sure. Like Liz, I have always moved often. There is something inherently cleansing for your soul about paring down; always editing. Homemaking is so completely, consumptively, creative. So I do understand her selling…maybe…I guess.

May7

We Will Walk It Out…

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“We’re all just walking each other home.” – Ram Dass

It is a glorious sunny morning, albeit chilly. As I sit in my beautiful new home high overlooking the sand bluffs and treetops of northwestern lower Michigan two of my close friends are fighting for their lives. One is fighting a physical cancer, the other a mental cancer. Both potentially deadly. I can’t help but wonder why them, why not me, or anyone else for that matter? It all seems so random, the blessings and the curses. There is one thing that occurs to me: there is no such thing as deservedness. No one deserves any more blessings or suffering than another. This immature notion must be allowed to wither away from our collective consciousness as a culture. It was a bill of goods someone sold us, and it needs to go the way of our ancestors.

As it happens, I have just been through a week of my own hell, bedridden with debilitating migraines. I had fooled myself into thinking I was going to do a nice liver detox this week, and then had to resort to taking migraine medication when the pain became frightening. There is a (not so funny) meme circulating on social media that says, “When the head and the heart clash, the liver suffers.” It has a different meaning to me now! Migraines come as demons in the night when I have succumbed to spending too much time in my head, disconnected from my heart. And there is grieving to be done.

But there is equal joy to be found in “falling apart at the SEEMS” and re-membering myself, my sweet life. And that I am not in charge here…as The Indigo Girls sing, “the less I seek my Source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” Today is the first day in over a week that I can stand up straight and the nausea has subsided. It is the first time I remember to look at my daily lesson in A Course in Miracles: “By grace I live. By grace I am released.” For some reason it feels like Christmas.

 

Aug12

Come Down Off Your Throne

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“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” – Maya Angelou

My family has been ravaged by the wolves of disease; by physical disease – cancer mostly – but also by the disease of addiction and poverty. Four siblings and I have moved in and out of homelessness throughout our adult lives. I guess it is a good thing there are five of us. Someone usually has a place with an extra room, a blowup mattress, or even just a vehicle. We have all managed somehow to survive to middle age. But as anyone who has ever experienced this will tell you, it is a terrifying way to live. Like soldiers of far away wars, this is a battle fought by families and entire communities. The toll is invisible at first, but the wounds are deep and long-reaching. The shrapnel works it’s way out through a lifetime and a bloodline.

Home has always meant life to me. In its least form it provides safety from the elements, though some must fend off other vultures within their walls. Full of its promised offering it brings sanctuary, restoration, healing. A good sleep, a shared meal, laughter…the courage to imagine.

I don’t know who it was who said “Home is Heaven for beginners.” My home certainly is. I am very grateful for my home. I have a lot to be thankful for.

As a young child I suffered a repetitive nightmare: I walked home from school, but when I entered my house a strange woman had taken the place of my Mom. And she demanded to know where I really lived – as apparently I was lost. So I went back out retracing my steps. Same address, street signs, neighborhood. I had entered some parallel universe where everything looked the same, but nobody knew me. Worse, I had no idea how to get back home. I’ve had a variation of this nightmare all my life, even recently. I don’t understand its meaning – other than to scare the living daylights out of me – but I sure understand the feeling. This is what it feels like to be without a place of your own, all alone in the world. It renders you utterly powerless and sucks the air from your lungs. But it also makes you compassionate for any sentient being just trying to hang on for one more day. This feeling is palpable in shelters – animal or human.

It seems my life has been a long search for home. Being in the world AND of it, is at last its own particular form of hell regardless of where you reside. Better to be in the world but NOT of it. The entry fee to that land has been pre-paid by grace. Yes, please…and while I wait as my mansion is prepared, I wait with all my heart and soul in the knowing that I do belong. I belong. And isn’t that what we all want, really?

“This is the bright home in which I live, this is where I ask my friends to come,

this is where I want to learn to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love.

This is the temple of my adult aloneness and I belong to that aloneness as I belong to my life.

There is no house like the house of belonging.”  –  David Whyte