Two houses ago—our little mountain cabin in the aspens

On my morning walk I try to meditate but all I feel is a burning jealousy of people with balconies. Later, in lieu of magically procuring a yard, we bike to the park where the geese honk furiously at the swan-shaped paddle boats, their heads violently snapping from front to back. I brought a book to read but I lay on my stomach and watch the people walking past instead: a loudly laughing man who looks shockingly similar to Tobias Fünke; two little boys in matching sailboat-printed button-up shirts, the older one proudly spelling out his name: b-o-d-h-i; a smooth pair of rollerblading fiends. On the way back to our apartment I pedal slowly past the beautiful homes filled with beautiful people and wonder if my life would be more beautiful I lived there too. Probably not.

I care a lot

I’ve been obsessively thinking about homes: what makes a home a home? where can we thrive? what aspects are non-negotiable? what can be compromised on? My husband teases that my standards for living are abnormally high. I’ll grant him that—my barometer for living may be skewed. I extract an enormous amount of comfort from the space in which I live and work and won’t rest until things feel “right.” (Admittedly nothing makes me more fastidious than living in a furnished apartment while all our things are in storage—who, for instance, decided that a wooden Colorado state flag painted in garish colors is acceptable living room decor?) Even though our stint in this apartment is temporary, I couldn’t help myself—when we moved in I hauled with me plants, bought a new bathmat, swathed the bed in our own linens, and rearranged the guest room. This process has made me think: why do I care so much? Assembling a home takes an extraordinary amount of work, time, and money, and there will always be spaces far better than anything I could conceive (cough, Troye Sivan’s house, cough). Why even bother?

Perhaps there is an explanation to be found in the temples of Greek gods, a place where the gods’ "specific characters could be stabilised through art and architecture." Rather than leaving their deities floating in the ether, the Greeks felt strongly about creating tangible spaces that reflected the gods’ respective identities. These ancient peoples knew that humans crave a physical container for the soul, that “without architecture, we struggle to remember what we care about.” In a way, our homes in the modern era are temples too. To say that our homes are shrines to ourselves might be a bit presumptuous, but nowhere else in the world is there an area that reflects our individuality so uniquely and vividly. Our homes are a tangible manifestation of what we value. 

Optimum living

Certainly our homes also serve as a sanctuary from the outside world—we cannot survive without shelter. But beyond a roof over our heads, what is home if not “a space organized for optimum living while outside remains as unruly as ever”? There is comfort in a place that is customized specifically to me: mirrors hung at just the right height, the bed made just the way I like it, the kitchen optimized for the way that I cook. Is this the reason, perhaps, that I feel awkward and clumsy in a space furnished by someone else? For, of course, the accoutrements of this apartment have been tailored to someone who isn’t me. 

I’m not sure when I’ll be home again, or where I’ll l find it. We’re waiting for a house that has the “spark,” that thrum of sparkling energy and the sudden urge to bar any other prospective buyers from seeing the house. Walking into every new house is fraught with anticipation—could this be the one? Could this be the place we make our own and raise children and get another dog? One by one, each house has chided us for thinking it belonged to us. Just means it’s time to buckle down and be patient. I’d like to think there is a physical container for my soul somewhere out there.

when we moved in, January 2019

It’s our last normal week in this house and inevitably I’m starting to feel sentimental. Like a fool I caress the textured plaster walls and thank the lilacs in the yard for their burgeoning buds, as if this house, those elaborate root systems have a soul. It seems a lifetime ago since we landed here. I have such tenderness for the person I was when we arrived. She was reeling from a sudden move and utterly unsure of everything. I won’t be sad to leave this town—there’s not much for me here aside from the mishmash of memories we’ve made, memories we likely would’ve made regardless of where we lived. For some reason—a premonition, maybe?—we made little effort to put down roots here, so the ease of leaving is no real surprise. The things I’m mourning now are really quite inconsequential: the balcony off our bedroom on summer mornings; the beautiful oak herringbone floors upstairs; the little nest we’ve made for ourselves. That’s about it, so I know we’ve made the right decision, and anyway, we’re only moving an hour away. Still, I can’t help feeling sad while the evidence of our lives is slowly erased from this house. Were we really here? Will some essence of ourselves linger in these walls? 

I refuse to believe that a house is just a house. While it might not be palpable to the new owner, within these rooms we toiled and grew into sharper versions of ourselves. Certainly some essence of our lives will remain here even if we don’t. In some way this house will always be ours, will merge into the rich inner world with us everywhere we go—that neverland shaped by all our experiences and places lived and people known, where things physically gone become immortal. In my head I can always return to my parents’ house and have a chat with my sixteen year old self, or bicycle down the bumpy path to my aunt’s ranch to check in with eleven-year-old me. And when I need to come back to this house, it will be there, waiting.

I am devouring books—lifelines to what has been, to what could be. With coffee in the morning and with a drink at night, books shape my day. I feel particularly victorious when a book is so good that I instinctively reach for it rather than the tiny glowing screen (just me?). Like Nikaela confessed, it feels silly to say that books have saved my life, but they’ve certainly made this life easier to inhabit. Here are a few I’ve particularly enjoyed lately.

Just Kids by Patti Smith

It’s astounding to read about Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe in the sixties and seventies. Smith couldn’t afford to attend art school and decided that surrounding herself with other artists was the next best thing. She arrived in New York in the summer of 1967 with nothing but a desire to be an artist, sleeping in parks and pilfering leftover food until she found a job and floppy-haired boy genius Robert Mapplethorpe. "I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist,” Smith writes, “though I hungered to be one.” The intense passion Smith and Mapplethorpe cultivated for their art is utterly inspiring, and spurred in me an eagerness to privatize my own art practice. After all, like anything else, art only becomes a failure when you stop trying.

Sue Miller

Sue Miller’s work is a recent discovery after reading her excellent book Monogamy. Now I can’t stop. After Monogamy, I’ve plowed through The Arsonist, For Love, and While I Was Gone, and am giddy that more of Miller’s exquisite books await me still. I so admire her pragmatic way of melding together the minutiae of everyday life—the idle conversation, the tidying up after a party, the lazy stream of passive thoughts—with the big life-changing stuff—complicated relationships, mid-life crises, sudden death. Because isn’t that the way life works? Even in the midst of utmost calamity, there are still dishes to be washed and the dogs to be fed. We are lucky to have such a talented soul in our midst.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah is a sweeping bildungsroman that follows a Nigerian woman’s education and immigration journey to the US and, eventually, back to Nigeria. Adichie addresses head on the struggles of learning to navigate a foreign country—difficult for anyone, and even more difficult for an African woman plunged into multi-tiered, confusing American society. I found so intriguing Adichie’s perspectives on race, and the stark differences between straight-laced, regimented American culture and loose, relaxed Nigerian culture. Though the book is long, it becomes a companionship that I, for one, was sorry to see end.

Olive Kitteridge and Olive Again by Elizabeth Strout

I was maybe the last person on earth to finally read Elizabeth Strout’s work, but what a treat awaited me all these years. Olive Kitteridge, like much of Strout’s work, consists of several short stories that are connected by their setting in the small town of Crosby, Maine. At the core of each story, in some way, is Olive Kitteridge—a complex, formidable, tough woman who is not entirely likable. But that’s what makes the book so compelling—who among us is perfect? In lovely, matter-of-fact prose, Strout vividly describes the beautiful New England coastline and the bizarre happenings that occur there. Strout’s work is a nuanced, honest, relatable commentary on the extraordinary juxtapositions of people and their strange lives.

Honorable mentions

Writers and Lovers by Lily King — State of Wonder by Ann Patchett  — Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens — Take Me Apart by Sara Sligar — Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

psssst…let me know if you have any books to add to this list <3

Mornings, I think, are the most sacred time of day and yet they are so easily squandered. If we wish to make anything of those precious early hours we must fight bitterly against sleep, that old friend turned foe, and against the pull of our digital antagonists. But the short battle is always worth it, don’t you think?

In the same way that our days shape our lives, our mornings shape our days.

One early March morning I took my usual route around the neighborhood. Overnight it had rained; the air clung heavily, and I wiped sleep from my eyes. And then—oh! The tender green rupture of new grass, the thickening and swelling of spindly branches—all a miracle. And to think this happens every year—thank you an exhalation with every step.

Then, coming home, fixing coffee and slicing bread, reading for as long as my day allows. Writing, if the moment feels right. Sometimes just sitting, staring into nothing. 

These things I do in the morning are not groundbreaking, and they expand and contract in the time I have available. But the basic rhythm is non-negotiable, for it serves as a boundary—a moment of replenishment—before the demands of the outer world start to creep in (and how easily they creep!). Afterwards, I am a calmer, more creative, more balanced version of myself.

If we fail to prioritize our minds and well-being, we shrivel into shells of ourselves.

What does your gut tell you to do? Listen to it. Let it inform your life. Mine says be still, wake slowly, pay attention to the tiny miracles. What exactly you do in the morning doesn’t matter so long as it’s done with intention. It may just change your life.