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I am one of those people who firmly believe a house, an apartment, or an underground dwelling place should be a "home." The place where I live has a beating heart which I formed with my two hands; it's my haven against outside influences, it's my shelter in the time of turbulence, and it's the place where I take off my clothes and totally let it all hang out. Needless to say, you aren't invited to see that part.
From where I sit now in my euphemistically nomer-ed "Office" the walls are purposely painted a color to rest my soul and fire my spirit and that color, Cornelian Red, was picked from 5000 other paint chips because it told me what I wanted to hear--which was a cacophony of "create more of your stuff every day and here's the surround-color." It's a cinnamon-y brick-red brown and it reminds me of the kitchen in an Italian villa I have yet to visit.
Once the wall color was pinpointed I lived out one of my phantasmagorical ideas; this is a first, don't laugh, but I wanted to decoupage the ceiling with the pages from an old encyclopedia and I did. Barring all future sales dollars on this home being anything more than what I paid and probably less, I let 'er rock on the ceiling and now I know all about the A's in life and especially the important A's: Architecture, Art, Africa, Astronomy, Alabama and Alaska, Anatomy and Authors. Right now I can drop my head back 90 degrees and in this position squinting my eyes, thus learn the finer details about Animals and Autos. Rows of pages alternate facing East/West and North/South.
With walls and ceiling done to a fine red-brown and bright satisfaction, there was that crack between the edge of the ceiling and the top of the wall that said "I look naked do something." A trip to Wal-Mart was revealing in that I purchased the answer to the crack and the solution to the windows--which to my way of thinking needed to be in a Mediterranean style or at least shout evocations of that dreamed-of place.
So there it is: The half-inch thick cotton yarn rope wrapping around the ceiling and segueing wall to page art, and the unbleached linen tab-top curtains with a two-inch wide trim--it's Mediterranean blue with a gold embroidery reminiscent of Arabia and possibly shouting "I might be a hippie" but nevertheless, adding pizzaz to the curtains role of light filters, hanging from slim brass cafe rods. And yeah, I took home ec in HS and 4H and I sew; clothes, curtains, bags and britches. I never said I was a hippie really, but I am a nerd who made all of her own curtains.
I didn't have much to work with in the carpet category; it was a lucky accident that the semi-industrial dark sage carpet works well in the present scheme. It doesn't shout bad words at me, nor am I tempted to knife it out.
I will tell you what I like best: The framed National Geographic maps, the bulletin board which I made from an old kitchen cupboard door, the wooden Pepsi crate filled with 27 mini Golden Guides to Nature, the 1920s tinted postcards of famous memorials, monuments, bridges, beaches and gardens in America, (slotted into an old oak church reader board) and the corners overflowing with books. It's a place where the pages of paper cannot be counted and the three desks each have a specific function, the least of which is to hold stacks of books, cds, writing utensils, crafting items and two cats. I have one chair. It's an ancient black metal office chair--costing $7.96 at Goodwill--and it rolls from desk to desk with a life of its own. I just sit on it; it does all of the work.
When Rich screened my happyrobot application, there is the question "Turn around and what do you see?" I answered: "A stack of homework and about 10 journals in various stages of unrest. A window with light and greenery, burnt August grass, and noisy trucks driving too fast. Countless books and evidence of my heart in all I see."
The next prompt was "Tell us something else." I wrote a couple of paragraphs and ended:
"...I heal well, as long as I write about it. Revenge on paper is not a crime that I know of. Failure to express meaning, though, is failure to live fully-and that is a crime."
It's really how I approached this room two years ago and how I live in it now. Everything has to mean something; somewhere, somehow, some way make it mean life, or we are dead before we live.
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