Living-Deliberately.com

In my dream last night, I was doing three things: I was writing, I was shopping, and I was explaining. When my alarm went off at 6:30, I’m pretty sure I audibly moaned in protest that I was being interrupted in the midst of bargaining with the woman in the antique shop. It was as if I was both watching and participating in the scene, pile of desired white handkerchiefs in hand, and then turned to the audience/myself to say, “Can you just wait a minute? I’m about to get a great deal on these!”

On the pillow, trying to adjust to the reality that I had to crawl out from under the warmth of my comforter, I remembered with clarity something I’d almost forgotten: I used to love shopping at antique and thrift stores. I used to love “old” things. Readers won’t be surprised with the frugal or homesteading aspect of that; it’s well documented here.  Old things are without a doubt, often still useful things. What I’m in the process of currently though, is untangling my own sense of style, preference, of identity.  Without attachment to a spouse’s style, or an item’s need or purpose, or what etiquette and fashion says is necessary, I am trying to articulate what are my own tangible “essentials”.

Once upon a time, in a life long, long ago, I subscribed to Victoria magazine. I had flowered wallpaper, lacy curtains, and dreamed of “five child” houses: big white victorians with huge porches and quiet old trees. My best friend and I (still very much loved, only parted by the chasm real life and divergent husbands can cause) adored classical music, Victoria’s Secret when it was still feminine and flowers, and old stores with home things women for centuries had used and loved. It was, in hindsight, the first experimental expression of the adventure it can be to find one’s personal sense of style. From it, I take a value of things old and lasting; simple things loved for both their beauty and utility and because of that, they endure.

When I was a new bride, planning a huge southern wedding, I began the process of “registering”. I was somewhat sensitive about creating a space that was so feminine it didn’t reflect the man’s taste. You’ve all seen it: so-called “master” bedrooms that look so girlie a man couldn’t get a decent night’s sleep! I dragged the groom on store trips, clip board in hand, to choose what “we” wanted. He was bookish and formal and the choices made reflect that. Dark colors, formal china; very traditional stuff. The ladies at my bridal showers clucked their heads at my “boring” choices. After all, navy, burgundy, and forest green were beyond common at the time. I reasoned that the dark colors wouldn’t show the dirt. I reasoned that he’d feel “at home” in his house. It was years before I started feeling like I was the one that didn’t.

Our first house came; it was the nursery and the garden I most loved. There’s two enduring concepts for you: nurseries and gardens have been a part of every home since before the Victorian age! They embrace both what’s old and what’s new, fresh, and growing, all at once. I painted the baby room pale yellow and in both places, I grew and was grown.

When our second house came along, the dark towels were getting, like a lot of other things, quite old and ratty. The dark green plates had mostly broken. I was pregnant with my fifth baby and spent hours in the kitchen, the garden, and at the clothesline. It was the diapers that gave me the idea, with their clean row of white purity and old fashioned wooden pins. In an ever-complicated, full life, I craved simplicity. Clean, streamlined backdrops to vibrant expression. I decided I wanted white plates.

When tax time came, we went to a big outlet mall and I bought those white plates and heavy white coffee mugs. It felt good. It felt like I’d chosen something I really liked. The seasonal, diverse foods I was learning about looked better on them,  like a celebrated part of the process of learning to slow down and live a more sacramental life. The idea spread: I came to realize, that at my core, I like “real” things. Real materials, like wood floors, natural fibers, leafy green plants, fresh air…and more quietly, but what makes this more than a mere tangible preference of “things” is the whisper underneath of what those natural things represent to me: simplicity, honesty, consistency, visible goodness.

Because you can’t sweep anything under a rug if you have a bare floor. And you can’t hide the marks of life on a towel if it’s white. There’s no danger of toxicity if you haven’t got synthetics. And what is more consistent and reliable than a row of cotton white linens in a row, unbroken by loud patterns or abrupt colors? When it’s quiet, you can hear the birds sing; it also means no one is yelling. A wood table may warp and develop a patina, but so too do our bodies and faces. I’d rather the truth of the story be told, than masked. I like rooms that get used living and chairs that are sat in.

When I woke up this morning, to make my grandmother’s waffle recipe using my great-grandmother’s waffle iron, it occurred to me that trying to explain a preference for white towels is like trying to explain why I like tulips. One just does: it’s not something to explain or apologize for. And yet, when he likes blue and I like white, I feel a tug to say, “I’m sorry” even if he didn’t ask for that.

Our surroundings tell others a lot about us. That wacko neighbor down the street, who can’t throw anything away and has no visible sunlight anywhere in his house, tells us volumes without speaking. So does the little old lady with her eternally pink flower beds; they are full of silk stems. Nothing around her ever dies. Then again, nothing really lives either. The soccer mom who has all the latest and greatest is as beige as her clones. In a world of credit cards, our surroundings can be as plastic as the item we used to “buy” them.

I read something last week that encouraged women who are attempting to discern whether or not their man is a “loser” to listen to the stories they tell about themselves. In them, they will reveal their true character. A man who talks about how much he buys or has is probably overcompensating for what he lacks. A man who talks about winning, fighting, or intimidating is likely insecure and violent. I think the same can be (maybe not always is) true of environments.

I met someone last year who’s quiet home is filled with photos of those he loves. It’s true: his life is quiet, his love for family is profound. Another friend has a clean “front” room but the rest of the house is as tumultous as the looming bankruptcy. Yet another has walls of bright colors and emergent art as open as her mind and curiosity.  In my gypsie life, with my environment packed and locked in transition,  I can see the disadvantage those who newly meet me are in. There is no environment to guage me by.  I must seem fluid and maleable. Hard to read. A transient life tries on different identities for size and discards them as they don’t fit. To observers, it must cause some level of hesitation. Who would know from looking that I’m really a house-mouse who craves a nest?

Quietly, on the edge of dream scapes and in months of parting with the evidence of a life, I have come to realize my own tangible essentials. When one needs walls to hang their own art, they can not forever settle for borrowing another’s space, nor can the paintings spend another decade piled in the closet; the expression needs a true home. Seeing my white plates hold a meal I spent hours growing and preparing is like a sigh, an evidential proof of the life around the moment. It’s why books on the shelves feel like a room of old friends.

Did you know that sunshine on white linens removes stains? Time on the line, in the light, washes in a second chance.

(post title from a song written by Michael Card).

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