CHAPTER ONE
My Baby Sleeps in a Closet, and Other Thoughts on Nesting
Well, my baby sleeps in a closet is the first thing you should know. // We live in an 800-square-foot one-bedroom apartment in New York City on the Hell's Kitchen side of the Upper West Side, the perfect little nest for a family of three. 800 square feet, to me, feels entirely enormous. Our last place came in at just under 400 square feet, which is barely big enough to hold a coherent thought let alone all my shoes, and so our place now feels practically palatial by comparison.
I spend most of my days hopping over broken crayons and plastic penguins, sharing space on the rug with a Little People farm set, two plastic pirate ships, and at least ten vintage toy cars from the Duane Reade. And then, when it's time to sleep, Huck and I walk the two steps to the left to the hall closet. Which is his bedroom.
Actually, Huck's hall closet is pretty spectacular. It's the piece de resistance of the whole dang joint.
It's also rather large, for a closet, anyway. It's just about five feet long and three feet wide, and everything he needs fits perfectly inside. There's even enough room for his mother to come in at night for some bedtime stories and good-night songs. We like to burrow under the covers, our flashlights zooming across the ceiling, reading books and making shadow puppets and whispering conspiratorial plans for the next day.
A closet bedroom might sound strange, but it's actually a staple of city living. It's also not really a closet. It's a fort. It's a tent in the Sahara, or a rocket ship ready for lift-off. It's the home of a boy and his daydreams, just the size for boyhood mischief. Because the only difference between a hole and a palace is what you bring to it. That's what the city's taught me. A closet, a bedroom, a kingdom, a nest. That is all up to you.
EVERY NEST NEEDS:
1. Somewhere to sit.
2. Something to do.
3. Something utterly useless but very pretty to look at.
4. Something cozy.
5. Somewhere to put your snacks.
6. Somewhere to put your thoughts.
7. And you.
Actually, Huck's hall closet is pretty spectacular. It's the piece de resistance of the whole dang joint.
From the days Huck was literally in a closet. Christmas 2013.
EVERY FORT NEEDS:
1. A favorite toy.
2. A favorite snuggle.
3. A bookshelf to hold his adventures.
4. A spot that's safe and smells like home.
5. A coonskin cap and set of binoculars, should he need to set off unexpectedly on an expedition.
6. A small chest for his treasures.
7. And a night-light for when he needs reassurance it was only a dream.
A closet bedroom might sound strange, but it's actually a staple of city living.
CHAPTER TWO
On Motherhood This Very Minute
I think every birthday, a mom practices letting go. // Huck is three now, the kind of three that drives a hard bargain and knows how to sweet-talk. Sometimes I look at him and my heart skips a beat. He is my proof. He is how I know that I can do things, real things. That I can make magic. Other times I just have to roll my eyes at him, because this child is ridiculous.
Huck can tell entire stories with his eyes. He can flash a crooked smile that has the punch line of every joke ever told. The kid has charisma shooting out his ears. I have no idea what to do with him.
These days, being a mom means loading and reloading a foam bow and arrow, saying things like, "Expert marksmen shouldn't have dirty faces," and retying shoelaces sometimes four different times in fifteen minutes. It means songs wherein key lyrics have been changed to "poop," deep-sea diving at bath time, coming up with answers to a neverending stream of existential life questions, and playing old favorites on the record player for a set of ears still hearing things for the very first time.
Huck's favorite game right now is something we call "Will My Head Fit?" Yes, Huck, your head will fit through the hole between the back of the chair and the seat. No, Huck, it will not fit between the booth and the window at the restaurant. It strikes me that this is the kind of game a dog would be all over. Being a three-year-old is probably exactly like being a dog.
Just this morning as I handed him a bagel for breakfast he said to me, "Mom, cream cheese is the best part of my life. Ever." He repeated the words "ever, ever, ever" with each step he took up the stairs.
This is the most fun time to be a little boy's mom, and the most magical time in a little boy's life. I am the lucky one who gets to take part. His dreams at night are at their most vivid. As his heavy eyes droop toward sleep, adventure still fresh in the flush of his cheeks, I swear I can see sword fights and pirate ships as they sail across his eyelids. Some mornings he wakes in mid-sentence, so excited to tell me about his dream that he's gotten started before he's even opened his eyes.
I love who I've become because of Huck. Motherhood looks good on me. Boys are complete bliss. I never thought I'd enjoy having a kid so much. Babies? I love babies. But kids? I do, I love him in the space he's in right this minute. Grunting macho "hello"s at the skateboarders at the park and squealing with delight at the puppies on their walks. Resisting my hand as we walk into the playground but searching for me the minute he thinks I'm not there. His babyhood just about made my life complete—I mourned the day he outgrew his onesies—but this moment right here is the best it's ever been. Every moment has been the best it's ever been. I have an entire lifetime of the best it's ever beens to come, and oh boy do I look forward to it.
CHAPTER THREE
How to Keep the Sparkly Spark in Your Relationship
I don't know a whole lot about being married; I've only done it once. But I do know a thing or two about being married to Brandon Holbrook, so we'll start from there. // Brandon is only the fourth guy I dated and just the second guy I kissed. Don't even bother to tell me you think that's romantic—I can tell that you're lying.
Before dating Brandon I was with a guy who was practically Brandon's exact opposite. This guy was easy, he was laid-back, he was always willing to let me be the boss when I wanted to be the boss. He liked me when I was bratty, and most of the time, what I said, went. I think I knew it wasn't the best dynamic. It wasn't the kind of relationship that could go anywhere, because while we were very compatible, we just weren't an equal match. I had too much control, which left me with too little room for growth. And then I met Brandon, and suddenly what I had was a classic Noel/Ben situation on my hands. You watched Felicity, you know what I mean. Noel is the easy choice for a girl like Felicity. They speak the same language. She's uptight, he's uptight; together they always agree and never question things and always have an easy time with things. A Noel understands a Felicity and always takes her seriously, and a Felicity can very easily take a Noel for granted. For a long, long time, I was staunchly Team Noel. I still am, in a lot of ways. But it wasn't until I met a real-life Ben that I started to understand what a Ben could bring to a girl like Felicity, and why, ultimately, she chose him.
Brandon can be the brick wall that I slam up against. Brandon can be a challenge. He makes me work for it. We come at things from two very different perspectives. He was the jock in high school, and I was the drama nerd. We quibble over the details; he keeps me on my toes. I can fluster him in a way that's incredibly satisfying. We're the Mr. Darcy/Elizabeth Bennet of this novel, is another way to look at it. We are definitely not the Jane and Mr. Bingley. There's an awful lot of sparring going on. Most days I consider it foreplay.
High school me would be astonished if she knew I picked the Ben, but I did. I picked the one that would make me grow, and I'm happy to report I am a whole foot taller than the day we were married. Emotionally speaking, that is.
You know, a perfect marriage really doesn't exist. You could be married to a really great human being, but that doesn't mean he won't occasionally cause you sadness, pain, and unearthly amounts of irritation. It's nice to think that perfection can be achieved if we work at it just right, and marriage advice along those lines seems to be a dime a dozen. Most of it is lovely, but some of it is complete crap. I like to keep a collection of what I consider to be the best awful marriage advice, just for funsies. Here are a few of my favorites.
THE BEST BAD MARRIAGE ADVICE EVER GIVEN, ACCORDING TO ME
* * *
1. YOU SHOULD MARRY YOUR BEST FRIEND.
Well, you should marry your special friend that you like to have sex with, and maybe keep your best friends as outside-the-marriage relationships. I just figure BFF status is a lot of pressure to put on a guy, especially given the kinds of things I like to talk about with my BFFs. No husband should have to bond with me over menstrual cramps and weigh in on the new pants I just bought. Save the girl talk for the best friends, and save the sex for the husbands. I mean, that's how I look at it anyway.
* * *
2. YOU SHOULD MAKE YOUR SPOUSE'S HAPPINESS YOUR FIRST PRIORITY.
This is a nice idea in theory, but the truth is it's pretty impossible to have any control over anyone else's feelings but your own. He could be trying his best, you could be trying your best, but an unhappy person is an unhappy person; it's not fair to blame it on your spouse. If you can somehow delete the idea that your husband is responsible for your happiness, and that you can't be happy unless he is giving you exactly what you need, then you'll be a lot happier together a lot more often. If he's in a bad mood, try not to internalize it. If you're irritated by something he says or if he refuses to see reason, you can still be happy and love him anyway. It's easy to feel threatened by your partner's behavior—after all, you're stuck with him for pretty much forever; you've got a lot invested in this—but empower yourself to create your own happiness, and look at your relationship as something that exists entirely outside of it. Make your happiness your first priority, tied with loving and supporting your spouse unconditionally. He's not the keeper of your happiness, and you're not the keeper of his.
* * *
3. DON'T GO TO BED ANGRY.
No, do go to bed angry. Teach yourself to go to bed angry. Learn to enjoy dinner angry, to walk to church together angry, to raise your kids together angry, to love him anyway, angry. Ideally we're all these ultra-enlightened creatures who don't get upset at silly things, but I know I'm not—not even close. Hopefully I never get to the point where I no longer get angry with Brandon, because I only get angry over things I really care about, and wouldn't that be sad if I didn't care anymore? So go to bed angry. Better yet, don't go to bed angry; forgive him, even though he's a dolt and then go to bed happy that you're the bigger person. Just, whatever you do, don't stay up with him until you're no longer angry. You might never get to sleep.
* * *
4. THE WIFE IS ALWAYS RIGHT.
Well, actually, that one holds a lot of water if you ask me.
OTHER THOUGHTS
* * *
1. YOU MARRY THEIR FLAWS; THEIR STRENGTHS ARE A BONUS.
This is one of those times where a long courtship comes in handy. We all come with a set of unique and not-so-unique flaws. For example: I like to shop, and Brandon hates giving back tickles. Or, if you prefer: I can tend to overthink things, and Brandon can be a little callous when he's impatient. It's all good; I knew what I was getting into and so did he. The flaws are the ice cream of this sundae. Some flaws I could not put up with. Like infidelity. Or dishonesty. Or being taller than six-foot-three, because that'd be an extravagant height difference for a girl like me. Now, your partner's strengths: Those are the toppings. Like Brandon's good-natured sense of humor and ability to make a room full of people feel at ease, or my quick wit and diplomatic kindness and my good eye for shoes. The cherries and the whipped cream, right on top.
* * *
2. DO IT ON THE PHONE.
By which I mean, stage your arguments over the phone, via text message. Brandon and I have been known to text our way through our more heated "discussions" while sitting in the same room, even, because it slows us down and keeps the risk of shouting to zero. Also, having a record of what you've said to each other helps keep you honest. You're less likely to over-exaggerate or say anything too radically insulting when there's a paper trail. Plus, it's a sneaky way to have a disagreement with your spouse about his parenting techniques without undermining his authority in front of the kids. I know someone who records her arguments with her husband on her phone so she can replay certain points back to him as blackmail if needed. Hey, whatever works for you, man.
* * *
3. NEVER DECLINE A ROMP IN THE HAY.
I look at it like a deposit in the savings account. Whatever fiscal responsibility and et cetera. Even if I didn't feel like it up front, I always have a good time in the end.
* * *
4. YOU ARE YOUR HUSBAND'S PUBLIC RELATIONS REPRESENTATIVE.
As a general rule of thumb, you should never bad-mouth your spouse to your mother. Or to anyone, really, but especially not to your mother. Furthermore, as go-between, it's your job to manage spousal/familial relations and run interference for him should something come up, and you have every right to expect the same in return. If your in-laws want to come visit, and now is just not a good time, it's your husband's job to break the news gently and preserve that all-important relationship between a wife and her mother-in-law.
* * *
5. HAVE A FAMILY MOTTO.
Brandon and I have been going around and around on this for months, trying to come up with a good motto for our family. So far the best we've come up with is "Holbrooks Don't Give Up," which …Maybe a better one would be "Holbrooks: Small but Scrappy." It's a work in progress.
* * *
6. FARTING IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ARGUMENT IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA.
I remember it as clear as day. We were in the middle of a heated argument (I have no idea over what, anymore) when Brandon completely out of nowhere let one rip. I was distracted, he was distracted, I started giggling because you can never not laugh where a rogue fart is concerned, and Brandon, rolling with it, shouted, "That's how you make me feel!" From then on it sort of became a thing. It comes in real handy in tense situations when you need to clear the air, so to speak. Similarly, I once got so frustrated at Brandon that I pulled my shirt off mid-sentence. Total Mia Hamm moment for me—I have no idea where it came from—but that effectively ended things immediately, as it's difficult for any guy to argue in the face of boobs. Most of the time you know when an argument is going nowhere or if it's getting you places, so use these tips at your discretion, and Godspeed.
* * *
7. MARRIAGE IS A BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP.
My mother taught me that romance comes and goes, the good times come and go, but shared goals and an investment in a loving family will be the glue that makes a union between two flawed people ultimately successful. In the ten-plus years we've been married, there have been definite times where I've looked at my husband and thought, What on earth was I thinking, I can't even stand this person. But never once have I questioned the future we are building together, or each of our abilities to change and grow as both people and partners. Even in hard times I can look at him and know that I put my engine in a real nice racecar, and that together we are going to go to some amazing places. Go Team Holbrook!
CHAPTER FOUR
Shirley's Drapes
Whenever I do something in my life that is odd (frequently), I like to stop in the moment and say a silent thank you to my dearest, craziest Granny Goose, who so generously passed down her crazy genes to me, thus making my life infinitely more interesting by filling it with bizarre and awkward moments.
My Granny Goose, Shirley, is my mother's mother. We share a middle name, a fondness for things being just so, and a penchant for agonizingly long and thoughtful shopping trips. She is far and away one of the most important people in my life.
My grandmother loves to go shopping. More precisely, she loves to puzzle and fret over purchasing decisions and pull all sorts of faces and then sigh in exasperation when nothing meets her criteria. "Well, it's just terrible. I have such needs," she says.
This one is my personal favorite: "I have to get in a certain mindset before I wear these shoes."
I can so identify with that, you crazy old lady.
My grandma Shirley is the product of a broken home. She was conceived out of wedlock, her parents only marrying for the sake of "doing the right thing." They divorced by the time she was six. Shirley mostly raised herself on her own until high school, when she met Dave Stanger. Shirley was smitten with Dave and his stable family, especially his mother, Viola, who put so much effort into creating a high-functioning and supportive home for her family, and his father, Davis, who worked steadily to make a consistent living and seemed to enjoy coming home to his family at night.
My grandpa Dave is adorable. He kind of whistles through his teeth and shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels when you're telling him a good story. He knows how to make you feel like the wittiest, most interesting person in the room. He can cuss like a sailor and wasn't terribly involved in the family religion at the time that he and Shirley were dating, making him the perfect go-between for a woman on the cusp of a major life decision. They were married in 1950 when Shirley was nineteen, and they went on to have five children: Davis, Serena, Paula Kay, Julie (my mother), and James.
My grandmother ran her home like a general at war. Her purchases were her soldiers, expected to perform with valor or else die on the field of battle. She had a tight budget to work with, but she managed to stretch it to hell and back. Her home was full of sturdy, elegant hand-me-downs that she polished to within an inch of their lives, until everything gleamed immaculate and grand. There was not a speck of dust to be found in her vicinity. The Stanger kids were always dressed in full costume regalia, minding their Ps and Qs, because Shirley was also a little bit terrifying. Every single thing she touched needed to bear her stamp of approval, and so everything around her was beautiful and exact. Her SOS pad lived in a footed brass urn by the sink; her drapes received the utmost thought and attention.
Shirley wanted to give her children what she had never had as a child. She wanted her kids to feel their home was a constant, to know that they were loved and safe there, and to have beautiful surroundings they could feel proud to come home to. And so she did it. She did in it spades.
Growing up, my grandma was always unhappy with me about something. Either I wasn't sitting up straight enough, or I wasn't playing neatly enough, or worst of all, I wasn't enunciating clearly enough when I spoke to her. I part loved/part hated/part hid from her attention, but even through her toughest scrutiny I knew what she was on about. She never told my cousins to do anything. I was special to her, so I got the full work up.
When I turned seventeen and went away to college, something between us changed. All at once, she no longer intimidated me. Our relationship had shifted to something approximating equal footing. Oh, she'd pull rank on me like always, but suddenly I felt sure I could give it right back. I used to blanch in slight horror at the snarky tones that left my lips, and she'd always frown in reply with all her regal condescension, but then she'd look at me out of the corner of one eye and wink at me, just a little bit. She was in on it. I was in on it. We were in on it together.
Brandon and I met the spring of my sophomore year. My Shirley was the first of the family to inspect him, and legend has it she liked Brandon so much she went on to utter the most famously high praise ever given in her illustrious career: "Well, if there's anything wrong with him, I didn't notice."
One warm August evening, when we'd been married six years, and after surviving a deathly boring summer where I supported my husband through his summer internship in San Jose, Brandon and I drove ourselves and all our belongings to my grandparents' hometown of Grants Pass for a quick stopover as part of our two-day trek to Idaho. We pulled in late at night and crept in through their front gate. My grandpa Dave had gone to bed early, as always, and just like always, there was Shirley Jean, up and about, making sure everything was in order for the following day. She welcomed us in, pointed Brandon toward the fresh loaf of bread my grandpa had baked for us earlier that day, and then patted the seat next to her on her brown leather sofa, motioning for me to sit. I sat down slowly and looked at her. It seemed to happen in slow motion. I sat on her couch, and there in that moment it happened: My adulthood. I'd been initiated.
I can't count the number of times I watched as my mom sat in that very same spot on that very same couch to chat with my grandmother late into the night. I used to peek around the corner and listen in, wishing desperately to be invited to sit with them, to be considered a grown-up, to talk about such awfully elegant things, like my grandma's new kitchen rug or what she should do with her drapes. And here it was—it had happened!
We stayed up till well past sensible o'clock that night, and when I finally went to bed it was as a full-blown woman, having weighed in on the state of her drapes and everything.
In the summer of 2013 my Shirley was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. It came on hard and fast. The first person she forgot was my grandpa.
"What can I do?" my mom said into the phone when she heard the news from my grandpa Dave.
"I just want you kids to remind her that I'm your dad," he said.
On her best days, my grandma was just a little foggy. On her worst, my grandpa would walk with her to the wall of photos she'd hung in her laundry room a hundred years before and point at all the faces. "See, Shirley?" he would say. "This is me. That's me there with the kids, and that's us on our wedding day. I know I look different; we've both gotten older. But that's me. That's still me."
My mom likes to tell me the story of when I was born and my Shirley came to visit me in the hospital for the first time. She says she held me in her arms and looked at me, just stared me down all serious-like, and then announced to the room in that lofty tone of hers, "This one's smart." My mom would tell me that story any time she needed me to remember to behave. Because above all else, what I did mattered. What I did was important to her. We always joked that I was my grandma Shirley's favorite, but then none of us were really joking. For better or worse, it was true. I was her favorite. Somehow our souls had linked up that day in the hospital, and that's just the way it was. I had her in my back pocket. She carried me in her purse.
It was at Christmas that year that I first met the Shirley that Alzheimer's created. She pulled up the drive with my grandpa Dave just a little before Christmas dinner, got out of the car, and as I waited at the door I braced myself. I could already see the confusion in her eyes, peeking out from behind her fierce mask of determination. "It's so good to see you," she said to me, but I couldn't tell if she believed it. And then she hugged me. And for just a minute it all felt the same, like maybe it really was my crazy Shirley Jean in there. But when she pulled away the look remained, and I knew that I was wrong.
She was just so feeble, standing there with that timid little smile that threatened to break and betray her fa?ade, and it was so strange to me. She had always been so much larger than life, this tower of matriarchy full of this-is-how-it's-going-to-go and because-I-say-so-that's-why. And now she just looked …normal. Her bravado was missing, and without it she was just some lady. Her voice had changed. All trace of her silly pomp and circumstance were gone. It was all I could do not to cry.
"That's my boyfriend," she said, pointing to my grandpa as if to introduce us. "Isn't he cute?" she asked. I nodded slowly. "He helped me count my spending cash this morning. Well, he is an accountant." (My grandpa had sold insurance all his life.) "I just think he's so sweet," she continued, and I wondered, where did she go? She was Shirley, but she was not. I wouldn't get away with rolling my eyes at her antics anymore. I certainly couldn't call her Granny Goose, the silly nickname I'd come up with for her when I was eighteen, and she clearly wouldn't know to call me Tillie, the silly nickname she'd come up with for me in return. I was just Natalie now, and she was just Shirley. Someone else's Shirley. Not mine.
I often think of what it must have looked like, the way she might have looked at me when I was just a few hours old. I think of that look on her face, and I think of this look now, this look of confused affection, and my heart breaks a little. Every time I spoke to her that Christmas she would look at me with a funny kind of disappointment bubbling behind her eyes. Who are you, and why do I like you so much? it seemed to say.
When I picture my grandmother, I picture her standing at the kitchen sink, slicing vegetables into a bowl, a knife in one fist, a cucumber in the other, the edge of the blade coming flush against the soft pad of her thumb. I think of her every time I'm in the kitchen slicing my own vegetables. I think of her drapes any time I think of mine. I can still see that face she'd make when things were going in a direction she found most displeasing, the Shirley Look, the same look I make any time I find fault with a thing and know I can get away with it. It still makes me laugh, every time I picture it, and now it's gone. It's just gone. And mine is all that's left.
Someday she'll require more care than my grandpa can provide, and she'll need to move into an assisted living facility. Sometimes I imagine what it will be like for her when she moves in. No doubt she will bring a few of her most hardworking soldiers with her, the things she is most proud of, purchases that made her house a home, that belonged at her real home, the home she'd lived in for fifty years and created from scratch, the home she has already forgotten. I know she'll forget about us too, about most of the things she created for us. Sometimes I wonder what new life she'll imagine for herself, as she pieces together the parts that she knows as best she can. I wonder what her story will be, what she'll tell herself about herself when the rest of her is gone. Nobody's Shirley. It's almost a brand-new start, isn't it? A new chance at life—a doubtful, confused life; a shadow of a life, perhaps—but a life nonetheless. The chance to create a new story is not something most of us will get to have in our lives, though I suppose, in a way, it is something we are all doing every day.
Two summers ago, just a week after her diagnosis, my parents came into town for a long weekend, and that Sunday afternoon she called my mother for their weekly chat. I'd been meaning to call that Shirley of mine for just about forever, but I'd been putting it off because talking on the phone makes me sweaty, and I was worried I wasn't brave enough. My grandma asked to talk to me as soon as their chat was finished. I swallowed a little nervousness as I was handed the phone, already unsure of who would be meeting me on the other end, but when she spoke it was my Shirley, just like always. I felt so silly for thinking she could be anyone else. How could anything defeat the indomitable Shirley Jean? We caught up on things, and then her voice halted, and she became very quiet.
"Tillie, I just want you to know, I'm having a little trouble with my memory," she said. She suddenly sounded so far away, and maybe embarrassed, as though she'd done something terribly shameful. "I got sick, honey," she said, "and it's affected my memory. And I just have to live with that now." Her voice started to crack. I sat there, a bit panicked, having never been exposed to my grandmother this vulnerable. I felt weirdly honored to have been entrusted with it, and older now than I'd ever felt before in my life.
"It is so disappointing," she continued, "but I want you to know, Tillie, that I remember you. I remember you, and I remember your husband, and I remember your son. And I love you, honey child."
Sometimes I pretend that was the last thing she ever said to me.
CHAPTER FIVE
On Making a House a Home
These are my feelings on homemaking, so go get some popcorn. // I take a great deal of pride from my home. Sure, the bathroom may not be totally spotless, and the rugs could probably stand to be vacuumed, but you know what, it's pretty in here. There's been some effort, and it shows. I make my home somewhere I love to be not to impress others or live up to some standard or ideal, but out of respect for myself. Fluffing a nest is an act of love and, at the end of the day, a gift to me, from me, sincerely yours, hugs and kisses. Because I deserve to live in a castle fit for royalty. And because putting one together can be a hell of a lot of fun.
HERE IS WHAT I FIGURE IT ALL COMES DOWN TO:
* * *
LET IT BE USEFUL, BUT ABOVE ALL, LET IT BE BEAUTIFUL.
If there's one thing I've learned living in a small apartment, it's that everything should pull double duty. Throw blankets should be lovely as well as cozy and warm, for movie nights and out-of-town guests. Food storage containers should be pretty. Even simple glass jars. They come in real handy when my husband brings home a bouquet of I'm sorry flowers from the deli. I love to spread them out over six or seven jars and place them randomly around the house. A bouquet of inexpensive roses trimmed extra short and tossed into a wide-mouthed mason jar on a bedside table? Nailed it. The bathroom step stool should be nice to look at, your towels should be white and fresh, important documents should be filed away in something lovely.
HERE'S A SMALL SAMPLING OF WHAT I LIKE TO LOOK AT WHEN I'M AT HOME.
1. Family albums.
2. Baskets.
3. Antlers.
4. Throw blankets.
5. Throw pillows.
KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE, AND THEN LIKE IT.
ALSO…
6. Doilies.
7. Hats.
8. Flags.
9. Pretty containers.
10. Dream catchers.
11. Plants.
12. Sheepskin.
WHEN IN DOUBT, HANG SOME ANTLERS ON IT
I really feel that no home is complete without a giant bit of taxidermy presiding over the living room, overseeing games of Uno and reruns of Grey's Anatomy.
PAPER DOILIES
Oh the doily! You can do just about anything with a doily. You can set a table, you can decorate a Christmas tree, you can protect your surfaces from water damage, make name tags, turn your home into a winter wonderland—you name it! A paper doily is the difference between chocolate chip cookies for the neighbors on a flimsy paper plate and chocolate chip cookies for the neighbors on a pretty, flimsy paper plate.
MAPS
One year for Christmas I sent my dad a map of Disneyland from 1969 I'd found on eBay that was printed the same year as the one he'd had hung in his bedroom as a kid. When we moved to Idaho, I framed a few maps of our old neighborhood in Brooklyn and hung them in the living room. When we moved back to New York City, I bought a Rand McNally map of the United States, stenciled "HOME SWEET HOME" across the front in white paint, and marked all the places we'd lived with little red hearts. It's a good reminder that home is where the heart is, whatever that means, and that just because you tell your future husband you don't want to move around a lot doesn't mean he'll listen.
HATS
Hats are the trickiest little buggers. I always end up having a really great hair day on the days I want to wear one. Also tricky is that they can be hard to store. So I like to hang them in clusters on the walls. They're really great in a living room or bedroom—a little bit casual and rugged and homey and relaxed.
HOUSEPLANTS
I think the wonderful thing about house-plants is that they give the sense that someone there is paying attention; that someone is actively nurturing. A thriving houseplant is the sign of a good homemaker. It just provides the loveliest of feelings. I wish I were better at keeping plants alive. (Hey, I've kept a toddler alive!) A clump of succulents huddled together looks so great. About every six months I have to go out and replace a few of the succulents I've managed to kill, but at five bucks a pop it's not a bad way to go. A well-thought-out placement of greenery is a wonderful way to make even the barest of homes look intentional, and a home that feels intentional is a home that's winning.
FLAGS
This is the bad news: Hunting for vintage flags on eBay is hideously addicting. Flags are a great trick for pulling a room together because they're relatively inexpensive for their size and provide a really great punch. A large-scale flag is just about perfect for knocking out a whole empty wall all at once. Plus they are dang easy to personalize to your own family history, and if it isn't personal to you, it has no business living with you.
I make my home somewhere I love to be not to impress others, or live up to some standard or ideal, but out of respect for myself.
BASKETS
Once Huck turned three, the situation with his toys seemed to explode overnight. Where do these toys come from? My best defense has been a good collection of baskets. I like wire mesh baskets to corral fruit in the kitchen, and I love the tall, lidded Senegalese baskets for containing all the spare throw blankets and throw pillows and that one fitted sheet I can never figure out what to do with. They bring really great texture and warmth to a room.
SHEEPSKINS
Just about everything in my house has had at least one encounter with a sheepskin. I like for my home to have a lot of white space—kind of an airy feel—but I also want it to feel cozy. A sheepskin is sort of a negative space miracle, where no matter how many sheepskins you have going on, you can still manage to pull off a clean look. It defies the logic of the universe, and I love them for that. I like to get mine at IKEA.
OTHER THOUGHTS ON DECORATING:
A person should only own one smelly candle per smelly candle location at a time. Otherwise you've lost the ship.
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You really only need one paint color on your walls, and I promise you, that color is white.
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Rugs are stressful, and should be layered for maximum effect.
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Respect the personality of your home. Don't overwhelm it with your opinions. If your house is telling you it needs a bib sink, give it a bib sink. If you move into a mid-century modern, get yourself at least one pair of Danish pegged legs. If you live on the coast, you know, let there be a seashell! Your Eames lounger will look great in your stately Victorian, so long as you've been authentic to the architectural history somewhere else. When you combine the soul of your family with the bones of your house, you can create something elevated beyond mere décor. Anyway, it's not a solo, it's a duet.
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I really dislike it when my husband tells me he doesn't think a cowhide rug is necessary. Mostly cowhide rugs are always necessary.
The most overrated accessory in your home is probably the throw pillow. Save your throw pillows for last. Don't even consider them until it's the last thing on your plate. And if it requires punching to get it to look right—you know, the karate chop maneuver—you should probably skip it all together. You're the boss: You can make these kinds of decisions.
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Throw blankets, on the other hand? Kisses on the face to the person who invented the throw blanket. Are four throw blankets too many throw blankets? You know what, forget I asked.
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But throw pillows are a really great way to inject some much-needed contrast in a room, I'll give them that.
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Because generally a room should have one overriding identity—be it French provincial or mid-century modern or farmhouse eclectic—and then you should add in a few thoughtful pieces that contradict that identity completely. This is how to avoid a house that looks like a showroom.
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I've always felt that family photos belong in a beautiful album on my coffee table, and not on my walls. Every December I sit down with all the digital photos we've taken over the year, save them to our back-up hard drives and our back-up back-up hard drives, and then order a glossy photo album made up of all of our favorites. I don't know, I've just always thought that a framed wedding photo looks out of place and awkward, no matter where you put it.
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The obvious exception to this rule is the photo gallery wall. I love me a good photo gallery wall. But a photo gallery wall requires commitment. You can't just flirt with a photo gallery wall—you shit or get off the pot.
CHAPTER SIX
On Tidying
I get a kick out of tidying up around the house. I just like to put stuff away. I don't know, call it a hobby. It's not terribly ambitious, but then neither is fishing, and you don't see that stopping people. // I like to see how much I can carry at once. I feel weirdly proud of myself when I balance it all without dropping a thing. I get an odd sense of satisfaction from it. I like to be as efficient as possible. I don't allow myself to backtrack or stop for any reason; I have to pick up more as I go so my arms are never empty at any time in the process, and I like to get it done super fast. I don't know. It comes close to thrilling sometimes.
It's part of my nightly routine. The house falls quiet, and I buzz all about, picking up toys, thinking deep thoughts, sweeping crumbs off the table, tossing socks in the laundry, throwing away another empty string cheese wrapper …
Don't get me wrong, I'm not fastidious about it. My house stays mostly clean, but only at face value. I may love to tidy, but I'm almost never bleaching things. I make the tidying a part of my nightly routine …and the bleaching a part of my husband's routine. (Or my cleaning service's routine—shhh! ) And I'm not a perfectionist, either. Stuff can go crooked for weeks on end, and I'm more than all right with that. I can live with a startling amount of imperfection—just look at my husband (har har).
There is also the morning tidy, which is equally as lovely as the evening tidy but rather different. In a morning tidy, you roam the house in your bed head and pick things up slowly. This is not a tidy for a rush, this is a puttering tidy. The morning tidy is for relaxing; the evening tidy is for speed demons.
AND NOW, MY VERY BEST TIPS ON TIDYING
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Start to tidy the minute it hits you. You'll know it when you feel it, and when you feel it, drop everything. And then, you know …pick it up.
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If you stop moving at any point, you will lose all your momentum and things will start to feel a little pointless. It is for this reason that you cannot stop until the final sock is folded and the last drawer is shut. Go. Go!
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At first you might backtrack a little or drop a few toys, and that's okay. You're new at this. Take it easy on yourself.
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A series of baskets in strategic locations around the house will aid you immensely, in case over-full arms of junk aren't really your thing.
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Once you've finished the tidy and your house is smiling at you, crack open a soda, put your feet up, and sigh. Then look around the room for a moment and wonder what on earth you are going to do about those drapes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In Defense of Beauty
I like to decorate things. // There it is. My home, my body, my shelf in the bathroom where I like to line up my aesthetically pleasing skin creams according to height like trophies—I like for my things to be pretty. I like for my life to be beautiful.
I spend a lot of time thinking about my living room. I like to look at my ceiling and contemplate imaginary light fixtures. It's not that I think that in finding the perfect furniture arrangement I will solve all of life's problems, but sometimes I wonder, is all. When I'm walking down the street and I happen to spot a pair of feet in some really great shoes, all other thoughts leave me completely. I once spent four blocks trying to explain to my mother why the girl on the subway platform in the black New Balance sneakers and the perfectly cropped black denim and a beat-up olive parka with the disheveled hair tucked into an oversized knit scarf could make me lose my train of thought and feel suddenly optimistic about pretty much everything.
I have a weird emotional attachment to my cake plates, and it's not even like I make that many cakes. I put a pretty high priority on a well-balanced outfit, considering there are whole countries falling apart. You know what I want to do when I get old? Needlepoint. I want to sit on a chair with a needle and floss, and I want to do some dang freaking needlepoint. I want one of those standing embroidery hoops. I can't think of anything more luxurious than a standing embroidery hoop. And I want to wear the kind of glasses that come with a headlamp. I want to look like Rick Moranis in Honey I Shrunk the Kids, stooped over a fabric rendition of some purple freakin' violets. Back stitch, satin stitch, French knots, breaks for a pot of tea or to knead out the dough that's rising on the counter—this, to me, sounds like heaven.
When I was a kid I sometimes got to go with my mother to a monthly craft night with her friends. Man, the crafts they did back then were ridiculous. And so exciting for a girl my age. Dolls with cornhusk hair you'd twist around a dowel to mold into ringlets. Black-and-white photos of girls wearing large hats with enormous sunflowers on them that you got to smudge yellow chalk into with your fingers. Chore charts. So many chore charts, all of them with tiny wooden boys and girls hanging under their respective jobs, with black dots for eyes and pink dots for cheeks and those exaggerated U-shaped smiles. One time we learned how to quilt for the sole purpose of making quilted toilet-paper-roll covers. It seemed like old-fashioned clothespins were always involved somehow. Nobody does this stuff anymore, and it is such a shame. Those nights were as good as therapy; not a thought in your head, just the methodical application of puff paint.
One afternoon I was out running errands with my dad when the subject of my mother came up. My dad got this faraway look in his eye and said, "Natalie, this is the thing about your mother. Growing up at my house, it never mattered what anything looked like. I had seven brothers. We were always dirty; the house was a constant wreck. I didn't expect that beauty would ever be part of my life. But then I met your mother. She brought beauty into my life. I didn't even know it was missing, but because of her, I have it. It's been so wonderful for a guy like me. She's made my life beautiful, and I'm so grateful for her."
And that's when I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.
