I am going to be contributing to Elle Decor on-line on the decoration – or my mental gymnastics on decoration – of my new house. You can find the first piece on what to do yourself and when to hire a professional at elledecor.com here.
I was in Paris for eight days earlier this summer with my, as it turns out, not-maladjusted middle child. (I had worried about the warnings of “middle children”when I became pregnant with the third. They were all unfounded. The middle may be the best adjusted of the three. Perhaps of all of us.)
I took the same trip with my oldest three years ago when he was the same age his brother is now, and guess what? It was not the same. Because the boys are not the same (and, perhaps, I am not the same.) It always makes me wonder when someone notes how different my boys are if that person is similar to his siblings. We’re none of us clones, so far anyway, and isn’t that what keeps family life so, well, lively?
It might have been the light, but after being in Paris for less than a day I was convinced that my living room walls are the wrong white all the way around, and cannot imagine that I made such a tragic mistake. Still, I have not picked up a paintbrush since I painted over the yellow swatches in the dining room. It’s difficult to paint while writing or herding children or reading books on the porch, so the walls must wait.
But if my plans are clearer, and bigger, I came home knowing first things first. This mirror will have a chalky finish just as soon as I can get these boys back to school.
Images from top, Carlo Bugatti, Rembrandt Bugatti, both at Musee d’Orsay, the remaining from the Rodin Museum. Oh, except the last, which is obviously my dining room.
Last week the youngest boys were away with their father and the oldest stayed here with me. He is a senior in high school this year and our relationship is shifting. He has been a breeze to raise. Everyone should be so lucky to get such a gentle introduction to parenthood. Even as we butt heads he disarms me with an easy humor that is somewhat irresistible.
The other morning as I was working upstairs, I heard the slam of the screen door and thought he had left the house. I skipped down the stairs, brow furrowed, with sharp words forming. Before I reached the door he was coming back in.
“I thought you left without saying goodbye,” I said.
He laughed and shook his head. “Would you relax? You’re usually on the porch in the morning. I wouldn’t leave without saying ‘good-bye.’ I’m going to work.”
He gave me a sideways hug, as he usually does, and was out the door.
Would I relax? No one is more bothered by my uptightness than I, and I was reminded again how I felt it drop away when I was in France.
If living there is something I must wait for, then I will find as many pieces of that life as I can here. So lucky, then, to be friends with Trish Headley. She’s just received her shipment from a three-week buying trip in Europe and let me run by her shop, Nufangle, and take a peek and live vicariously on the stories of her travels.
You can do the same at her open house:
Unless I need to set the alarm very early, this is how I wake nearly every day. He wants out. He wants breakfast. He wants a walk. I don’t have a rug in my room and he shifts his weight, the click of his nails on the floor both polite and insistent. If I don’t open my eyes he lets out long sighs, but stop shorts of a whine.
Dexter always wins. His exuberance and good nature are difficult to deny. In addition, Rosie has been at the vet for several days. She has a hematoma in her ear that became infected. (I am hoping she secretly has a trust fund that she has been too shy to tell me about as well.) We can tell that Dex is concerned, though he’s not depressed. We are being gentle with him. We understand. We miss her, too.
The dogs and I usually take long, fast walks in the morning in order to keep my heart rate, and backside, up. Dexter doesn’t mind fast, but is impatient with my unwillingness to let him stop and smell, well, everything. The weather this weekend has been beautiful. Summer, still, but not too hot and little humidity. So tonight, in order to enjoy the evening and please him, I took him on a slow walk and let him stop and smell as often and as long as he wanted. There were times, as he sniffed seemingly nothing for an inordinate amount of time, that I was reminded of my same resolve and resulting impatience fourteen years ago or so, on visits when I promised my oldest that we could stay at the train store as long as he wanted.
Dexter amuses me in his typically male behavior of marking all territory “mine,” and I indulged him in this, too. I think he is ridiculous, but he’s quite focused on this task. Rosie, when she’s with us, looks back over her shoulder at me as he does this very nearly rolling her eyes. Again, typically, he takes our inability to understand in stride.
He enjoyed the stroll and my patience and the smells. Even with our slower gait he collapsed, seemingly exhausted, and lay snoring beside me as I was working. The walk was satisfying for me as well. As we walked slower, my thoughts came slower. I noticed houses and gardens that I hadn’t before, though I’ve walked by them dozens of times. A different dog might be smug with this knowledge. But not Dexter. It’s simply not in his nature.
I did not intent to be away so long. I went to Paris in June and have been distracted since. More regular posts should follow.
I am not sure I can describe the giddy delight of this combination. Not sure I can express the indulgence of it, so extreme in my world that it is decadent. In-house frozen summer treats are nothing new around here; popsicles and ice cream sandwiches and vanilla are never in short supply. Cones, too, are often present and sometimes mint chocolate chip, but never sugar cones.
Things evolve this way. All the boys like vanilla, so it’s easy. All three, too, like cake cones. They are at ages where an ice cream cone a day has no effect on health or heft, not that any of them would stop to consider either.
I do not like cake cones, a scrunchy, airy styrofoam concoction I’ve never understood. And while I like vanilla, I’m not tempted by it. It is temptation itself that I resist. I don’t over-indulge in anything, except perhaps the worry of over-indulging. But last week, alone at the grocery store, I stood in front of a foggy glass door and wondered, “What bad thing will happen? Cavaties? Countless pounds?” I hesitated. “Unlikely.” I nonchalantly tossed mint chocolate chip, my favorite flavor, into the cart. Then, standing before the cone options, I noticed the mixed marriage of cake and sugar. “Could they be as good as in a shop?” I wondered. “Or will they be a crumbled mess?” (Not that I am judging crumbled messes at this point. Every cone has her day.) I put my fears aside and brought them home.
As I popped open the cardboard box and spied true styrofoam, its smartly formed ridges holding each sugar cone whole and safe, I admired the design of their container. I opened it carefully and slid a cone from its home. The sharp edge of the scoop lifted the ice cream in a thick rippled curl and I pressed it inside the cone as gingerly as I would return a baby bird to the nest. Another scoop created a full round mound. I bit the ruffled excess from the edge, a first bite cliche, and pressed the soft, frozen cream to the roof of my mouth, feeling the cold and the sharp bite of the mint travel up my sinus, then the thick snap of the dark chocolate under my teeth. A week later I wonder if it is the treat itself or the feeling of naughtiness that delivers the thrill.
