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Tag Archives: cozy apartment

An Unmade Bed: Living the Messy Process

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Pushpins (Daily Life), The Creative Life

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cozy apartment, friendship, human nature, the creative process, writing

About a month ago, my friend Kim wrote an excellent blog post about writing in the morning. I read it at the beginning of January, on a train ride from New York to New Haven. The post was full of luscious descriptions of gourmet oatmeal and the pure joy of putting together sentences. The whole piece was a pleasure to read, but one line stood out in particular to me: Kim wanted her readers to enjoy their morning drafts, to revel in their messiness, to take delight in slipping outlandish ideas and sentences into their work before their inner editor woke up. “Much of life” she wrote, “is messy process folks, not product.” This line made me laugh hysterically, startling the reveries of my fellow train passengers, but I didn’t care. I laughed because her words felt so damn true.

It turns out that my friend’s line was a prolific harbinger, giving shape to my next thirty days. My January was quite messy—full of chaos, lessons, and growth. It was a time that stretched my understanding of life, essay writing, librarianship, and human nature. And during that month, I was rarely able to make my bed. My mornings before work found me on my laptop, typing in a sea of blankets, before throwing on work clothes and running out the door. During the day, no bedspread calmed this unruly sea. The blankets stayed rumpled and exposed, with grammar and theology books hiding in their folds.

Not having time to make my bed felt odd. It’s one of those morning rituals that makes me feel like I have life in order. That I can be just as flawless and put together as a smooth bedspread and artistically placed pillows. But I wasn’t this past January and didn’t have the time to make believe that I was. There was nothing finished about January—I was in a process, growing and creating. And a made bed is a product. But a rumpled, unmade, bed is a space of possibility, a place to live into an ever changing life.
The right companion for a messy process.

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Broadchurch: Snap Judgements and Scottish Accents

11 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Pushpins (Daily Life)

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cozy apartment, England, human nature, making mistakes

In last week’s post, I mentioned that I couldn’t watch Broadchurch because, in it, David Tennant lacked his Scottish accent. I do not like to live my life in such broad and ridiculous judgments, so, my sentiments bothered me for the next few days. What sort of shallow, silly girl stops watching a show because she only finds the main character attractive if he’s rolling his r’s and blurrily calling people “little madam” in a slightly sassy way? Apparently me. Oh, add to that a script that is stunted and awkward, and one’s interest in a show goes to hell.

I eyed Broadchurch every time I looked at my Netflix queue over those days of questioning. Surely, I’m better than this. Friends, who have sensible and discriminating taste, liked the show a lot. Maybe I should give it another go. Maybe I was too hard on an American accented David Tennant.

I pressed play and was immediately thrown into a confusion. The first episode’s overall aesthetic was grainier than I remembered, while across the screen paraded cup after cup of tea and awesome English actor after awesome English actor. Many whom I recognized from London stage productions and Dr. Who.

I pushed pause. Wait. What was I watching? The Broadchurch I was writing about last week was a distinctly American show, David Tennant was talking like a cowboy and he had a sexy blond sidekick. This show had tea and people skulking about on rocky beaches and in back gardens. This Broadchurch was definitely English. Plus, the cinematography was gripping, and the acting and writing, beautifully nuanced.

I calmed my confusion with a quick google search. Apparently, I had mixed up Broadchurch with Gracepoint. Gracepoint is the American spin-off of Broadchurch. Both star David Tennant and center around the murder of an eleven-year-old boy in a sleepy beach town. It was Gracepoint, not Broadchurch, that had so bummed me out earlier this year.

Well…this show of tea and beaches and English stage actors could still bum me out. David Tennant had yet to grace the screen. I pressed play and rolled my eyes. I was holding my breath in anticipation. I am ridiculous to care about this…but, will he or won’t he?

Finally, David Tennant’s angular face, framed by floppy redish hair, appeared in a closeup shot. He glowered at the camera and opened his mouth….

I delightedly squealed.

YES!!! DAVID TENNANT HAS A SCOTTISH ACCENT!!!!

I made a huge mistake. I’m going to like Broadchurch after all.

Urban Snowstorms and Sweet Ohio Red Wine

28 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Pushpins (Daily Life), The Creative Life

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countryside, cozy apartment, Midwest, New York

The snow swirls and curls outside the window, I cock my head and watch it gracefully move in the late afternoon sun. Its presence is soft, muted, and gentle as it winnows through the straight streets and tall buildings of New York’s Upper East Side. By tomorrow morning, the city will be covered in a deep snow.

Being from the Snow Belt of Northeastern Ohio, snow is a winter inevitability—its manifestation involving salted roads and large expanses of forest and farmland, covered in a cold sea of solid white. But this is my first urban snowstorm. The first time I’ll seen snow embrace the busy, lived-in world of a big city.

I look away from the window and back to the laptop that sits on my lap. On a small side table to my left, is a hot cup of tea, Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth, and a glass of sweet Ohio red wine. I always bring back a few bottles of sweet Ohio red wine when I visit my family in the Midwest. I’ve yet to find a red wine that matches its tasty contradictions: light-bodied but rich, delicately sweet but sensuously grounded. But at this moment, I enjoy not for its contradictions, but for the sense of consistency its ruby presence gives me. Though buildings rather than trees tower outside my window, my snow rituals haven’t changed that much. In Northeastern Ohio, I too would weather out a snowy afternoon with a cup of tea, a good book, an interesting writing project, and a glass of sweet Ohio red wine.

Inspired, I hold my glass up to the window and absently swirl around its contents. The wine seems to be dancing with the snow. What a mismatched couple they seem to make:  Red and white, liquid and solid, town and country, all moving before my eyes. But are they really so poorly matched? For even in contradiction there is consistency. Won’t this snow melt, evaporate, and rain down upon the vineyards of the Hudson Valley, or even those of Northeastern Ohio, depending on the weather patterns? Won’t future clusters of grapes benefit from this snow’s liquid nurturance, and swell full of flavor and life? And won’t a Midwestern girl enjoy an afternoon of snow, even if her landscape is tall, squared buildings rather than expansive, rolling farmland?

The answer is yes, for even in contradiction there is consistency.

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Living Christmas Trees

10 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Pushpins (Daily Life), Religious Exploration, Romantic Botany

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Advent, cozy apartment, New England, New Haven

This is the first year I got a Christmas tree for my apartment. After the mayhem of graduate school and locking down a job in New Haven, it seemed fitting to at last claim my rootedness in this space. It’s a live tree—something I’ve always wanted. My family’s Christmas trees were never real because Caspian and Callisto, our family cats, enjoyed climbing branches a bit too much. And the tree smells wonderful: clean and heady, as only pine can smell. Cinnamon spice ornaments and pomanders (oranges studded with whole cloves) further incense the experience. I cannot properly articulate how wonderful it is to come home from a stressful day at the office and breathe in the spicy sweetness of my living room.

And as I inhale, I think about the contradiction of the Advent season here in New England. Its weather is cold but its spirit is warm, it is darkened by early nights and lightened by the soft glow of candles. Yet above all these contradictions, Advent is a time of focusing. Because of the cold and the dark, I think we reach out more intentionally to life, bringing growing things—like Christmas trees—into our homes. Pungent reminders that even in the deathly dormancy of December, there is potential for life and new experiences.

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A Rainy Day and A Pot of Kale

19 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Gardening, Pushpins (Daily Life), Romantic Botany

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botany, Bronte bashing, cozy apartment, New Haven

Monday was grosser than gross here in New Haven. It was a dark, cold, rainy day. The sort of day that Emily Bronte would totally have written long-winded, Gothic novels about, complete with horrible characters whose souls were just as dank and dead as the depressing weather they lived in. I was quite surprised Heathcliff wasn’t wandering up and down my street screaming “Cathy!!!!” as he beat his manly chest in fits of dangerous passion. He would have felt right at home with the wet and the chill and the wind.

I have Mondays off, so I didn’t have to venture out into the moist, sucktastic awfulness until much later. I took full advantage of my freedom and spent most of the day working on various writing projects in my flannel-sheeted bed. I also brought my relationship with my electric blanket to a whole new level. Seriously, the only time I detangled myself from its warm embrace was to leave the house for a marathon of evening meetings.

The next morning, I woke up, feeling rather shameful about the amount of time I spent under an electric blanket. But the shame was fleeting, especially when I noticed sunlight filtering in through my bedroom’s curtains. Its soft yellow glow seemed so foreign and new after yesterday’s miserable darkness. I walked to my window and parted the curtains. The sunshine was real and was shining on the large pot of kale that lives on my balcony. I had winterized my garden this past weekend, and out of curiosity, I repotted my healthiest kale plant and put it on my balcony. Since kale grows throughout the winter months, I thought it would be fun to still have growing things on my balcony—a jolly green presence amidst the chill and cold and snow. The plant wasn’t very happy after its transplant. In spite of my valiant watering efforts, its leaves sulkily slumped out and down from its main stem. But after Monday’s downpour, its leaves reached up and out to the sun in a stout and decided manner.

I smiled. Perhaps yesterday’s weather wasn’t that Brontesque after all. It’s dank dampness did encourage life.

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Cleaning out the closet, I mean, the bookcases

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Fashion, Pushpins (Daily Life), The Creative Life

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books, cozy apartment, making mistakes, vintage fashion

I went through my bookcases last weekend. I figured it was probably time since I had to step around a fort-like structure of bindings and dust to get to my desk.

So, with reusable bag in hand I went to work…and found out that my book keeping rational was very similar to the clothes keeping rational women with overflowing closets seem to possess. Just like that pair of jeans from high school, the study of Normative Ethics will never fit me again. There was a brief time in grad school when the ideas suited me, but now they just feel uncomfortable and outdated. And do I really need that commentary on Amos? Yes, the book is big, beautiful, and impressive—but I never use it. It just sits on the shelf gathering dust, like that overly shiny halter dress you bought to go clubbing in (and face it, you will never go clubbing).

IMG_0910Cleaning out my bookcases made me realize that when I have a disposable income, I waste it on books instead of clothing. In my youth, this habit made me quietly smug. I was not one of those shallow girls preoccupied with fashion and boys. Oh no, I was much better than that because I would buy books to read…and one day, I would impress some Austenesque fellow with my intellect and profound understanding of the world.

Book after book went into my reusable bag. These weighty tomes of Western thinking might as well have been outdated dresses and blouses. Yes, I bought books to improve my intellect, but I bought books that I didn’t need, that I wouldn’t read, that I would abandon the minute they lost popularity. My sin is just as bad as your average shopaholic.

There is room on my bookcases now. Let us hope that I’ve learned my lesson. Especially since I can order any book that I wish—for free—through our university’s library system.

When I was a Child, I slept like a Child…

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Pushpins (Daily Life), The Creative Life

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cozy apartment

Over this past weekend, I put aside my tiny twin bed and got a proper, full-sized one. An event that fully slammed the door on my childhood. The twin bed, now wrapped in layers of plastic and living in the basement, had been my bed since I was a little girl. It was the place of solitude and quiet where I would go to daydream, read, write, and wistfully stare at pictures of a young George Harrison. It was sad to say goodbye.

But in the days after getting a proper adult bed, I’ve been acting more child-like than usual. My new bed is really big, and all that room makes me outlandishly giddy. I’ve jumped on it, taken naps on it at all angels (my favorite: the diagonal nap), burrowed under the covers and read a book with a flashlight. I’ve even let myself sleep in because, OMG, memory foam and my sleeping body really get along. The support is an irresistible combination of firm and soft. It’s like being cuddled by a muscly Scotsman as he whispers the most heartwarming C.S. Lewis quotes in your ear. Yeah. Solid bliss, right?

Perhaps this childish behavior is my way of vainly grasping at the last physical reminders of my childhood—that could definitely be the case, but, there is too much joy and not enough shrill self-denial to make me worry. As hard as it was to say goodbye to my childhood bed, I’m happy that a bigger bed gives me more space in which to take refuge. Plus, there’s not enough room for an adult to take a diagonal nap on a twin bed.

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White Ceramic Bowls

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Pushpins (Daily Life)

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community, cozy apartment, friendship

photo 2

I have house guest this week. An old friend who will stay with me in my cozy apartment. That was the plan, until my housemates from downstairs needed someone to apartment sit for them.

It is the evening before my friend arrives and I am in my housemates’ apartment, making sure that the space is ready. I pull out sheets and towels and put away pots and dishes. In the process, I find one of my forks in the cutlery drawer, warmly welcomed  into neat piles of silverware after some past exchange of cobbler or cake. I lay the fork on the kitchen table.

The only thing left for me to put away is a trio of white ceramic bowls, outward sloping and angular in shape. They are bowls I know well and deeply associate with my housemates. These bowls have contained all manner of things: ice cream eaten in solidarity when one of my housemates was pregnant, chili consumed in ecstatic joy as we gathered for house dinner, and soup, not consumed at all because a toddler’s pacifier floated in between the chicken chunks and spinach leaves.

I carefully place the bowls in the cupboard, pick up my fork from the kitchen table, and ascend the stairs to my apartment. Like my fork, I am going home from home. I wouldn’t want to welcome a house guest into any other space. For here, we regularly share our forks, our bowls, our households, and our lives.

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