Patina : many wears, great memories, 12 years.

Posted on July 14, 2022

A 12 year search.

A subtraction from my closet has me questioning if I am too attached to my clothes. My green jacket is getting donated to a thrift store. This was the first outerwear garment i purchased after I moved to America. This jacket went on every hike I ever did and was the tent on my back on every camping trip. My shoulders do not fit into it anymore and I cant make do. It is from a fast fashion retailer who did not design it for life lived. They made it for an image, quick turnover and for the gullible woman I was. The mock pockets drove me crazy for years. The then young woman had no care in the world, lived for the day, didn’t deeply think about her purchases and bought the best looking garment for fewest dollars spent. Zara always won at that game. I set out to wear it till I could write down a list of requirements on what I need from a jacket and found it.

Requirement : A utility jacket that is made for the human who is homesick and filled with wanderlust.

Homesick because I love wandering around my house with my dog. House doesnt have boundary lines that stop at our property for my puppy. She seems to yearn for walks on our streets. So do I these days. When inside the house, I am homesick for my garden. When in the garden, I am homesick for resting indoors. When I am at my desk, I am homesick for walks… When we walk the streets and her energy seems boundless, I lust for our regional shoreline park. I feel at home here and love it.

Wanderlust because we need to go see the forests that survive on East Bay inspite of the suburban sprawl. I would like to intimately know one national park and maybe study to become a docent. I crave a deep understanding of ecology and economy. It’s a kind of wanderlust that makes every plant and animal a part of the story. I want to wander aimlessly. I want to wander with a plot map in hand.

I need my utility jacket, shoes, hat and bag to facilitate travel.

A jacket that can be worn when outdoors. Fit my everyday carry. Not chafe on the backpack straps. Largest pockets without looking silly. Comfortable pockets to protect my fingers from the cold wind. Be easy to be worn over everything. Match every thing. Be navy blue. Make me feel at home in the outfit. Make me invisible. Be ordinary and not draw attention to me on the street. Dont stand out. Make me look older and wiser. Be warm enough. Be ventilating enough. Be tough. Be light. Not be plastic-ey. Be mendable.

Look like you once belonged on the back of one of the great Beat Poets of San Fran or the sheep farmers in the North. Look like it could belong on the back of a tired woman you see on the train, coming home after a long day. Look like it belongs on the back of a woman lost in her book at an unglamorous not-Instagram-able cafe. It should age well.

Be affordable. Be made of waxed cotton. Shouldn’t be too precious. I cant fret about getting it dirty or be careful about my clothes when outdoors.

This is what I found :

I have been wearing it for the last month and it fits.

I wish this is how considered every addition to my closet is. I wish this is the kind of obituary all of my clothes get when I let them go. Not true. But I keep trying. With practice, the though process between seeing something and wanting it, the duration between wanting something and choosing it, and the process of decision making seem to feel more in my control than a run away train driven by desire.

Gratitude Journal : June

Posted on June 27, 2022

Patriarchal belief that a women’s body autonomy is conditional, got a green flag from the Supreme Court. Wanted pregnancies can now become criminal cases if you get medical attention in case of complications. There is no way to spin it to see a silver lining or to find gratitude in what’s happening. The same mindset who can do this to women can destroy nature by reckless extraction. Our fates are intertwined. I have no optimism left in my tank and am allowing myself to grieve. The right wing clerics will rule on West Virginia Vs EPA soon. Our climate meetings in the last month resemble attending a funeral over and over again. How did the past generation of women win over these rights that I currently have ? How did we make any progress at all ? I need to learn from our past. Dear women who fought for us to give me these rights, thank you. It’s now our turn to pay it forward.

The Pause, part 10

Posted on June 20, 2022

An ode to Erin

After we moved into our home, Erin’s philosophy on incremental home improvement and upkeep started to make sense. She has very slowly and steadily kinsugi-ed every apartment she lived in and made every place better without tearing it apart + creating a whole lot of waste. Her way of making a home is what slow decor has come to represent for me. Her tiny improvements are the antidote to all the fast decor/fast renovations/house-flippings I crave after seeing them on the internet/among my peers. She works on her home, by herself. Waits to find things she needs on the stoops/second hand markets of NYC. All very poetic and deliciously slow ! With her current apartment, she let it be for the first year after move in. Slowly, the work started. To sit in on less-than-perfect dwelling for any period of time, requires the wabi-sabi mindset and a tolerance to imperfection. I need to learn that mindset. For every influencer who shows me how to rip out everything old and buy wabi-sabi-aesthetic-esque-items to replace it with, I need an Erin to influence me to pause, not upgrade and live-small unapologetically. The way we live can be the way of the climate artist, with art going miles deeper than what can be seen on the surface. Thank you for the lesson !

If you’ve been on the internet in the past six months and have even a vague interest in home improvement—or the algorithm thinks you might—you’ve probably been subjected to a video that pairs the soaring, poppy “ah ha-ha-has” of AJR’s song The Good Part with a before-and-after video of someone’s home improvement project. At this stage I’ve probably seen a thousand of them. With the press of a palm, a smelly (I’m guessing) old garage is turned into a studio replete with built-in custom cabinetry and brass hardware. Brick fireplaces get repointed and plastered and hung with abstract art, windows get replaced wholesale, decrepit kitchens become streamlined visions of efficiency with nary a formica countertop in sight. The videos are addicting and with reason, skipping to the good part of any project, no matter how big or small, is something I’d like to do on the regular and there’s nothing wrong with indulging in a bit of warp-speed project completion eye candy.
But here’s my semi-regular reminder that the good part isn’t always a dramatic reveal. (And off-screen, sometimes the dramatic reveal is not so good at all.) The vast majority of my work happens slowly, with a brush-in-hand and a butt-in-chair that’s at odds with the algorithm’s thirst for drama. The expectations we have of online content creators, and by extension ourselves, don’t give us room to celebrate the little wins, the small improvements, the comfort that one tiny change can bring. Progress doesn’t have to happen all at once, indeed, it never does.
So, at the risk of repeating myself, on this mercifully sunshine-y February day, I’m writing from my newly arranged home office with trim freshly painted in a different shade of white and the desk moved 18-inches to the East. From the other side of the screen, you might not catch the differences at all, but inside these four walls, they’re as clear as day. I’m already feeling like I’m at the good part. A good part, anyway, one of many, in a work in progress.
Erin Boyle, Can we skip to the good part.

The famous Dieter Rams quote, and title of his 1995 book, “Less, but better,” gets used a lot in minimalist circles. (Full disclosure, I used it myself in my book.) Like so many pithy quotes, it’s often taken out of context, or construed to mean something different than originally intended. A designer, Rams was no doubt referring to his own pared down design aesthetic, but also referencing the impact of that design and the notion that simpler design allows, in some measure at least, for simpler lives. In recent interpretations, I often see the phrase used as a kind of consumer mantra—a guiding principle for how one might shop. Choosing the one hand-hewn stool, for instance, instead of three mass-produced ones, is to choose less, but better.
…
I’m currently writing a post about tea strainers, of all things, and my quest to replace my two insufficient and damaged strainers with something, well, better. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask for one strainer that will adequately do its job of keeping leaves from floating in my tea. And yet, of course, what’s so wrong with a few stray tea leaves?
I sometimes wonder how well these superlatives, and our quest for the best of something, end up serving us. What about the possibility of replacing better or best with good enough? The reality of my own day-to-day life is that living simply and keeping a pared down collection of well-loved items often isn’t about having the best. It’s about making the best of what I already have.
Erin Boyle, Less and good enough.

Reading My Tea Leaves is one of my fav blogs and continues to be a corner of sunshine on the internet. Her writing has the capability to enchant me out the consumer culture I live in. Her writing made me strongly believe that art is necessary to create the counter-culture that can compliment the required climate policies. Art came first to change my mind, IPCC reports came later. To see someone glee-fully living with less and imperfectly DIY-ing her way through life is good influence, in a world of perfectly-polished-stylized no-imprefection-tolerated tear-down-anything-old keep-upgrading-on-loop image-obsessed-world I somehow fell into, on social media. I heavily leaned on her for tiny house living and minimalist wardrobe building tips through the years. She became an archetype of ‘have a full life with a few beautiful things and be a good citizen who is politically engaged in a democracy’ that I want for myself. After reading the IPCC reports, I don’t think bloggers should equate sustainable living to bulk/vintage store shopping and send all of us women over-working ourselves in the kitchen. Yes, we should reduce single-use plastic and carry reusable. But it should not stop there. If I put in my time and energy into the movement, it has to be smartly utilized towards a goal, not just keep me busy doing mason jar approved housework and make me delirious in thinking that is the best place for my mind to be. Being in that initial wave of zero waste blogging had expending all my energy on tinkering with the 20 grams of CO2 emitting problems while turning a blind eye to the 2+ ton C02 emitting personal problems and 2 million ton emitting systemic problems. Listen to the climate scientists, innovators and the artists. Act on IPCC reports. That is the way out of the crisis.

Individuals with high socio-economic status have high behavioral plasticity and capability to reduce their GHG emissions, especially in mobility by flying less and utilizing electric two, three, or four wheelers, by becoming role models of low-carbon lifestyles, by investing into low-carbon business, and by lobbying for stringent climate policies ( high confidence).
Cultural change, in combination with new or adapted infrastructure, is necessary to enable and realise many Avoid and Shift options (medium confidence). By drawing support from diverse actors, narratives of change can enable coalitions to form, providing the basis for social movements to campaign in favour of (or against) societal transformations. People act and contribute to climate change mitigation in their diverse capacities as consumers, citizens, professionals, role models, investors, and policymakers.
Collective action as part of social or lifestyle movements underpins system change (high confidence). Collective action and social organising are crucial to shift the possibility space of public policy on climate change mitigation. For example, climate strikes have given voice to youth in more than 180 countries. In other instances, mitigation policies allow the active participation of all stakeholders, resulting in building social trust, new coalitions, legitimising change, and thus initiate a positive cycle in climate governance capacity and policies.
Transition pathways and changes in social norms often start with pilot experiments led by dedicated individuals and niche groups (high confidence). Collectively, such initiatives can find entry points to prompt policy, infrastructure, and policy reconfigurations, supporting the further uptake of technological and lifestyle innovations. Individual’s agency is central as social change agent and narrators of meaning. These bottom-up social-cultural forces catalyst a supportive policy environment, which enables changes.
Social influencers and though leaders can increase the adoption of low-carbon technologies, behaviors, and lifestyles ( high confidence ). Preferences are malleable and can align with a cultural shift. The modeling of such shifts by salient and respected community members can help bring about changes in different service provisioning systems. Between 10% and 30% committed individuals are required to set new social norms.
– IPCC. This is a guideline for sustainability bloggers. Read the ones who help. Detox the ones who greenwash. Support the ones who are trying to transition to low-carbon living and writing about it.

Make the house livable.

Have enough furniture so that we can sit and sleep.

Have Sufficient ambient lighting in every room.

That was my goal for year one. We achieved it. We have it good to do every activity we need. Let me pause for a while and do nothing. I have a deep desire to make my nest cozy and beautiful. But slowly and as sustainably as possible. Let me recover from all this buying and detox from the mindset tuned to acquisitions. Let me think, edit my lists and find em second hand. I need a long term strategy. I need to develop a long term strategy. I need to deeply think about lighting, focal points, texture, juxtaposition, anchor points, smells, sounds, walls, ambiance, art, … for every room. I need time to digest and edit the ideas I come up with. Taking a time out, will help. This maybe the most important step in the process so far. Let me take the time to appreciate what we have right now. It takes time to learn a space, know what it needs, to understand our use patterns, to find our sense of style, to develop the stamina to wait for the right thing, to gather the courage to be creative, to find the balance between minimalism and lived in, ….. Pause, to clear my head and slow down. Use the saved energy to garden. Gardening and decorating a home should have the same philosophy :

Make a mood board for the house. Sketch your garden plan.

Buy the most necessary furniture. Plant the trees first.

Slowly find the decor second hand. Plant some native plantings.

Upkeep what is owned. Water deeply and Compost.

The End.

The Rug, Part 9

Posted on June 18, 2022

The discovery of world of Japandi style created a dislike in me for my current rug. I wanted something else. I was discontent and was ready to cull-and-buy. I even placed an order for a jute rug and then got it canceled. I couldn’t do it. My current rug is vintage. It was sold to me by a women lead company. They rescue and repair old rugs. Their warehouse is 3 miles from home. My rug is made of high quality wool and the mends are thick polyester yarn. It’s only been with us for 3 years. Should I throw out perfectly fine things on a whim ? I was making short lists for my next rug and getting ready to sell this one. Then, the movers finally arrived from the East Coast with our luggage and we finally rolled out our old rug in the living room. My puppy immediately clutched on to it like a child clutches her blanket. She settled on it and wouldn’t get off it for a long time. As a rescue dog, this rug was the first place she felt at home in our old apartment. To her, arrival of this rug was a sign that she was home after a long cross country journey. She calmed down and settled in. I called off my search for a replacement rug. This is it. We may not be inching towards Japandi at the rate I want, but this rug is the perfect one for our current life. We now have many dog friends who come home to play with her. A rug with pattern that doesn’t show mud stains is essential for our way of indoor/outdoor living. I sometimes see the strain in the faces of our friends when they see their kids play on our beige couch. They do not know the miracle properties of Sunbrella fabric and often think I am lying to put them at ease. I can extrapolate this stress to panic, if we had a beige wool rug. Our hot pink rug is probably what I need for this space. I am the one who cleans this house, coz patriarchy exists. I can’t get too inspired by women who have cleaners-on-call and follow their design advice. I like my rug as is. My partner and I then went on to have a very important conversation on balancing change in tastes with using the things we already own. 10 years at least, is the bench mark that we both agreed upon. Buy for the decade. Use it for the entire decade. After that, we are free to stray and think of re-decorating. Given this clarity, I dropped off our rug at the cleaners for a once-every-3-year deep clean. We got to take care of it and make it last.

The Bookshelf : part 8

Posted on June 16, 2022

This is my very first bookshelf ever, and it’s doing some heavy lifting in making this space ours. From the beginning of our companionship, we somehow got away with books stacked where ever we could find the land – windowsills, fireplaces, room corners, on the dining table, in chairs of their own, … The idea of dismantling shelves for our yearly moves made us choose to be without, and it was the right call for then. We wandered all life, and are now settled into an extreme nesting phase. I don’t want vacations. I want to be home, have intimate gatherings and to garden on the weekends. We thereby went all in on the house furnishings and this bookshelf was our first purchase. We had stowed away a reference from our past waiting for this day: my poet friend Marian’s living room. She is the only person in the world, that I know, who has her couch facing her enormous bookshelves. We don’t live a lifestyle where our seating needn’t face the television. Too many shows to watch and games to cheer for. We did buy the exact bookshelf she owns though, and it fulfilled a different fantasy : a home library wall of our own. Some notes :

A personal library is a serious endeavor. It is not a storage. It’s not a place where books go to hibernate, but a promise to educate myself.
A personal library does not end in the confines of my house. I plan to install a little free library outside my home so that I may share my books with our neighbors.
Only the books that need to be re-read get to live in the house with us. The rest should be borrowed from the library. The ones that don’t get read shall be given away.
I wont be styling my bookshelves. I don’t have that sort of energy right now. As long as my shelf aides exploration and reading, it’s a job sufficiently done.
I need a white shelf, to tone down on the visual clutter from the graphics on book sleeves.
Books should not be categorized by genre as long as i can find the book I need in under 5 minutes. It helps with spontaneously stumbling upon other forgotten books and casual browsing.
Shelf should touch the ceiling. Someday, I will style my shelves with plants and family heirlooms.
Anyone who comes home is free to borrow what ever book they want. Its financially painful to replace some but I want to be that person who shares her books.
I shall someday get a rubber ink stamp made for our books with a name for our home library, just so that there is a small imprint of ours on all the books.
I want to start wearing this pin, when I know that I would be meeting new people. Yay or Nay ?

Living Room Seating, part 7

Posted on June 14, 2022

Living Room : As used by the previous owners of this house.

Living Room : On the day we got the keys to the house.

Living Room : This configuration keeps changing, but we have plenty to work with.

Configuration of least entropy and easiest flow in the space.

Seating Requirements

Our living room is 13 feet wide and 9 feet across with a walk way behind. I have often wanted to yell at the architect who built this house and ask him to explain the why behind this choice. I could never figure out how to use this space well. Where does the tv go ? which way should the couches face ? What sort of seating should we get ? Our ex-tenants showed us how.
Aim to seat/sleep 4 people comfortably. That’s the median number of humans who seem to inhabit this space. Aim to seat/sleep 6 people less-comfortably. That’s our average number of humans in this house, on the weekends. (Median is almost always more indicative than average in my profession given the outliers. Design minimum viable systems with the median in mind. ) For >6 humans, I can not be expected to have stuff ready and hoarded for the day they might visit. Middle class Indian kids/women are taught to sit/sleep on the floor so that they don’t go on to become a burden when they become guests. Most people adjust. The ones higher in the patriarchal ladder don’t adjust and claim the most comfortable seating all the time refusing to share. ( Abolish patriarchy.) Come who may, small spaces are the way to live for me. Urban density and small spaces, are a climate solution and we wont hoard space so that some guests might lounge more comfortably when they visit. We can provide for the basic needs of everyone who come to stay with us, not the wants nor the luxuries.
Seating should be modular enough to be reconfigured as needed. Small couch plus 2 chairs that can be moved around is my solution to this space.
The palette should be neutral and calm. I am not looking for excitement and personality from my seating.
Small spaces look less claustrophobic when you can see the flooring. Metal legs as opposed to chunky legs help.
Small spaces look more airy when they are orderly. I didn’t want to be match-matchy with all my seating but having the same base layer helped bring the entropy down in the small-very-busy space. Quirky and mismatched needs energy that I don’t have. I want calm and easy.
We chose seating with black metal legs, beige cushions and leather accents. My puppy has these same undertones and she camouflages in our living room.
Could not find a couch small enough for this space. Ended up buying half of a sectional after a long search. If a bigger living room might come our way in the future, then we might buy the other part of this sectional.
I needed my couch/seating to look pretty on its backside, since it wont be pushed to a wall and will be very visible. That ruled out most couches.
Seating cushions should have removable covers that I can wash. I use a piece of Sunbrella fabric, that gets washed weekly, as a throw to protect the couch from our very dirty pets and children after they spend time in the garden. When the day comes to re-upholster these couches, I will use this exact outdoor fabric because it’s quite marvelous.
Our Indian cot should have a place. In reality, nobody seems to like sitting on it. Someday far far away into the future, a day bed should take its spot.
Vibe of the room : conversation pit. Purchased a gray and red wool throws for added comfort.
The TV needs a bezel and to be mounted on the wall. Knowing us, it will take us a year to get to that project. That is fine.
I do not have the bandwidth to do more to this room for the next year.

We remember not liking this space at all when we first moved in and being annoyed about it’s usability. That we started at a zero, made any progress and got it to this state in the first few months, with amazing light dancing though the windows and a spatious-than-it-truly-is-feeling, makes me very content. It’s a job done. I can rest for a while. This is enough for now.

The Coffee Table : Part 6

Posted on June 8, 2022

A jewel for the living room.

We bought an antique table last year and it continues to enchant me since. This was one of those rare purchases where I wrote down a list of requirements and prepared to wait. Serendipity stumbled upon me and I found it by accident. Right after we packed up and was en-route our cross country road trip, we found it in a vintage shop and got it shipped home. It was the first piece that arrived home, like a housewarming present. It was heavy contradicting the way we bought our furniture in the past years, all designed to be light weight and easy to move homes. A sign, a symbol, a new beginning, …. perfectly fitting into the honeymoon period with a house where everything can be poetic and your mind plays tricks to make you believe in a rosy future that can unfold. It continues to be the right table for this space. My check list for the table :

Sit by it and sip tea. How would that feel ? Can I see myself sitting by this table as I age ? Will it blend with the music we play ? Is it quiet enough ? Should feel right.
What does it look like in sunlight ? enough warm tones to glow in candle light at night ?
Second hand or Vintage. Preferably an antique.
Material : wood. We have children running around and I cant bear to think of one of them banging their head against stone or concrete or glass.
It should be a small single piece of solid wood. The wood should show signs of the life it lived and be enchanting. I don’t think this requirement is pro-sustainability. Fast growing responsibility sourced timber should be used over felled old growth trees for human consumption. I did some mental gymnastics to summon the required cognitive dissonance to buy this. Bragging about my find on a blog isn’t good for the planet either. But here I am.
Cracks must be interesting. Some day, I will mend with butterfly joints in brass to keep it intact with the help of a local carpenter.
It should feel marvelous to the touch of the hand.
Should be big enough to fit my tea pot, a tea cup and a book. Should be tiny enough to not clutter my small living room.
Should be mostly be naked wood and very little human intervention in its making.
Should look alright next to the smaller stools I have, for practical use near seating.
Height of a coffee table is supposed to be shorter than the couch. I wanted it a tad higher to have the ground visible to make the space feel visual spacious and airy. The dogs/cats should be able to go under it if needed. If height was no requirement, I would have tried to find a vintage Senufo table.
The vibe of our living room is conversation pit. I don’t need the table to be big enough to hold board games, stacks of books and such. We have a dining table that is an all purpose device. Takes the pressure off what else is required from a coffee table.
My coffee tables wont be styled. No books and objects will be arranged on top. It’s beauty should be in its nakedness. ( Like instrumental music.) It thereby wont require a woman to constantly dust objects, coz decor gods know that patriarchy exists.
Could become a future console / side table if need be.
I chose this for myself, over for-entertaining-guests who will need to put their drinks/snacks on it. Can I sit here in the night and drink tea on it ? That’s the vibe.
If I someday retire to a cabin in the woods, this should go with me and fit in new tiny spaces.
Should be easy to sell and recover some of the money paid if Trump 2.0 decides to kick me out of the country. Sometimes, I get greedy with the life we have. If things start to crumble, I should remember how good I have it and that change is a part of life.
Coffee tables are a bit like handbags from what I gather. Folks can get a little aggressive with their likes and dislikes. The designers and stylists make a big deal out of it. “The right coffee table” seems to demand the money like luxury handbags do, in a scammy manner. During the peak pandemic, designer coffee tables became investment pieces and were being bought with a frenzy. I was getting sucked into that world of stylists on Instagram. The jewel of the living room, … the words are theirs and are now etched in my head. My jewelry has always been dainty and silent. My jewelry minds its own business and is never grand or aspirational or salient or sensational. That sensibility made it home. My money is better spent saved for retirement than as a coffee table. Nikaela Marie of Rose and Crown helped me decide what I want. This photo of hers below, helped me write this requirements list :

This is all I need. Something to sit by and go about my life. Read, eat, work, drink tea. Not for styling, not for a visual, not for an aesthetic, not for instagram, not to show off a design prowess, not for vanity, not for guests, …. but for our life. Her bench was rescued for her grandfather’s barn. Fits her story. Inspires my story and our living.

House, Commandments, Part 5

Posted on June 1, 2022

Laura Fenton’s The Little Book of Living Small, is a required reading for anyone who wants to live happily forever outside the confines of a McMansion. Reading this book was like re-discovering minimalism, was like those days in the monastery and having the environment to be content, is like how one feels after a good spring clean, is like getting over an addiction and being free, is like waking up in the morning on a campground and smiling to yourself for no reason, is like a night when you sit on your couch hugging your puppy and just be, is like serendipitously glancing upon a night sky full of stars and pausing to take it in, going to an eulogy and realizing what is important in life, like marrying your partner and to know that you are on a pathway to figure this life out with the right companion on your side, … A weight lifted, that is the impact this book had on me. It is “permission” to feel good about living small. ( Just like how wabi sabi teaches you to not be ashamed of old worn out things. ) After time wasted obsessing over a housing upgrade, I stopped and settled in. The book has some good philosophy and the subsequent information for anyone pursuing this path of living with less. Reading this book helped me re-caliber my thinking on what my house should be, and to see a small house as a long term home for us. I have been coming up with some more commandments for myself :

1. A house is much more about filling a space with good ideas than it is about comforts and aesthetic. Abolish patriarchy. Adopt permaculture.
2. House becomes a home when we stop interior designing and start living
3. A house is for the ones who live in it full time. Not for guests who might visit. Not for the one party we throw every month. Not for a design exercise for the brain muscles. Not for instagram. Not for blog. Not for any other purpose beyond it being our nest.
4. Our happiness is not tied to a glossier house.
5. NO HOUSE is supposed to RESEMBLE ANOTHER. No house need be inspired by another or live up to another or be like another. You do your unique you. Stop peer pressure in its tracks by limiting time spent on social media. Fear of missing out on inspiration and ideas ? Reframe it : Joy of missing out on the constant frenzy of “better”. Joy of not grazing stuff that can be consumed. Joy of being content.
6. Time is luxury. Being able to calmly move through the world at my own pace, is a luxury. I used to get irritated and fixated on scratching the itches that crossed my mind. Buddhist practices like vipassana and wabi sabi are helping me control my impulses. When I do take on the project, I want to do it well. Till then, self it for the future. Save the energy, time, attention and money until it’s time to take the plunge.
7. Entire house should be a cozy space. There is a popular lounger chair called the womb chair whose name I like more than the actual chair. Every small space has the potential to be womb-like and cozy.
8. Solar panels on roof, rainwater management and compost are the essentials.
9. A yard is measured by the biodiversity it supports. If it’s mostly lawn and a few humans lounging for 45 minutes a week (national average), it’s space wasted after being violently taken from a once-forest.
10. A garden is no garden unless it resembles the ecosystem it is located in. Build for the bees, insects, birds, worms, bacteria, small animals, native plants, wild weeds, ground cover, diversity of plants, … first. Grow food for the humans next. Aesthetics later. Monoculture industrial gardens and modernist mindless designs that force life into recognizable shapes do not belong in my home.
11. Lighting is my first priority when making the inside of a house more livable. Proper insulation is next. The rest, we can slowly do.
12. The opposite of over-designed, over-thought and overdone.
13. No to beige on beige on beige.
14. Keep the kitchen simple. Do not get carried away by appliances. No need to cook a zillion things and need equipment that requires it’s own share of housing. It is okay if I don’t make dosa or pizza or air fried chicken or wok tossed fried rice or grilled meat. Keep the suppers simple and nourishing. Don’t make food that requires a woman to be chained to the stove for extended periods of time.
15. Stay away from the domestic goddesses of the internet with money wands who constantly renovate like they are stuck in a loop. Escape the loop by not stepping into it.
16. Get my partner more involved. He is currently a pillion rider with me driving our needs and making the decisions. There has to be equality.
17. Make money go long way. How long ? Beyond my own use and stay. Let everything have the potential to become vintage item of a certain quality. Do without till such item can be afforded.
18. Do not start buying and decorating right away. Live in a space first with minimum possible, get a feel of it, and then start making it yours.
19. Permaculture is what makes a good animal of us in our ecosystem. Learn the philosophy and start with applying it at home. Start with #1 : Stop, Look, Listen.
…

I want to read people write personal essays about their homes. I want to know your process and how you evolved over time. I want to know your philosophy of nesting. I want to know how you grew content and happy with what they have. I want to hear about the long pauses one takes before improving a house. I want to know about design rules and trends you fought off in your head, to take a chance at creating something you envisioned. I want to sit in on conversations about a 360 degree change of mind in ones design process. I want to know your stories, how ever unrelatable they are. Oddly enough, I also want to hear people ramble about their chairs or tables and light fixtures. I want to hear about pet-peeves that intersect with the McMansions. I want to read an essay on love of a bookshelf or a cozy corner. “For the love of a window”, is a perfectly acceptable blog post title for an essay. I am recording my evolution here, for anyone who wants to read what I wish I could read about your homemaking process.

A memorial : Part 4

Posted on May 29, 2022

Dear M

Since childhood, we thought we would enjoy this phase of buildings our nests and have each other to bounce ideas. I see the Pinterest boards you were actively creating for your new home, and it makes my heart ache for the life you didn’t have. You understood the value of money and frugality better than I did. You were frugal, saved and splurged with intent on long lasting things. You were to get that French stove with brass accents when you got tenure at the university. We were to go to Paris together and buy a Kelly bag some day ! How optimistic we were. You are gone. I don’t have you and pursuing our idea of good life alone feels like cheating. How dare I have what you didn’t ? It’s quite lonely and not as much fun to do any of this without you. I would have liked your critique of the bad ideas that I really want to pursue. Only you could have talked me out of some things I got for the house and later realized was money wasted. We always thought that once we are out of grad school, money will come in plenty and we would easily be able to afford all the things we Pinned to our wish lists back then. That hasn’t been the case, has it? The standards of acceptable quality has risen. Lifestyle creep has happened. I currently want a stone water basin for my garden that costs more than our share of rent in grad school. I am staring at some black boots from Hermes on eBay that I need you to talk me out of. Everlane was once the acceptable quality bench mark and it no longer does it. Everything is much more expensive than the things we wanted in grad school and I don’t have a money wand to wave around. That is okay. I have more than I need. I shouldn’t be wanting or buying these many things. It’s bad for the soul. It will make me value every I have less and make me drift farther away from simple living ….. There are loans and mortgages to be paid. Family duties are expensive. There are human rights related causes to donate to. Climate work don’t pay as much as selling attention/gadgets/ads/stuff. There is retirement to fund with the hope that we will make up for all the years spent in academia on peanut wages. I will never buy that Kelly. That much money will never be insignificant enough to spend on a non-essential bag. I actually dont want luxury bags anymore. That desire for such toys, is long gone. Childhood has ended. You are my lesson in letting go and accepting an end when its time. What is a sensible buy and what is a waste of money ? I miss our conversations and your perspective. I tried to make many people fit the hole in my heart you left me with, but one can’t make a new old-friend. So I am back writing in a blog again. Here is my purchase plan for our house:

Original 2021 List* :

couch
lounge chair
bed frame for master bedroom.
a bookshelf.
Ambient lighting for living room.
Coffee Table
*buying it all at once is bad for the soul. A buying habit, aka consumerism is hard to shake off or shut down once the tendency takes root.

Moved from 2022 to 2021, for the unexpected guests**.

mattress and frame for guest bedroom.
Desk.
Blinds for living room.
**buying this much stuff gave me a whiplash. I now shut down and black out when I see house stuff. My body refuses to process it.

2022 ***:

2 Chairs for dining table. ( purchased )
Lighting for our bedroom.
Under cabinet lighting for kitchen countertops.
Adirondacks for backyard.
Tv wall mount.
*** still in the recoil period. I want to put off buying house stuff until my husband forces me to or some guests arrive.

Moved from 2022 to 2023

Replace all the boob lights.
Backsplash for the kitchen.
Art for the walls.

2023 :

Matching hardware for doors
Electric switch plates.
Curtains for bedrooms.
Full length mirror ?

Conversations we would have had :

Spending money on good furniture is much more satisfying than when buying clothes. Its for something bigger than me. It’s for all of us to gather and live.
I dont know what my style is. Maybe Japandi and Arts&Crafts movement inspired ? I haven’t paid attention to houses. I know so little and had to force educate myself to get started.
Buying all the things on my 2021 list made me nauseous. I never bought that much stuff, in a span of few months, in my entire life. I never owned this much stuff. Disposing the packaging after the move traumatized the militant-zero-waste-person that I once was. It shut me down since. I want to put off doing anymore for as long as possibly. Is this common ?
House improvement, is a big project. I want make this place a tad better than when I found it. How do I do so without getting sucked into “tear it down and replace” mode ? How do I not slip into the cycle of desiring something all the time ? Because improvement is endless.
Should I be doing small projects every month ? Or do a bunch of them at once and rest for a year ? Which way is better for my mental health and the environment ? Should I treat it as upkeep and renewal ? Or as a renovation ?
How do I resist the “I need an end product NOW” mindset ? How do I resist “this is ugly. I need to get rid of it asap for a result. I want a pretty house NOW” mindset ?
Do folks ever get tired of their homes like I get tired of my old clothes ? Does that happen to a home ever ? If it does happen, I should save my improvements and spread them out far into a future timeline. That way, there is something “new” happening in an old house every year.
My garden will take 5 years to mature. I need deep time with a place to create it. Garden is one aspect where I wish I had a magic money wand and hired-help to do the landscaping. I am eager for an end product. But I will do all the digging by myself and call it a work out. Will I eventually grow a strong gardener’s body ?
White, walnut wood tone and some red/pink. That’s my desired color palette.
I think I need a house-in-progress that I can fix, not a house that is already well oiled. Do I have savior complex or is this an itch to create or a way to waste time ?
Native trees for the wild habitat I am trying to build, are on my wishlist and I am greedy. Small ones are 60$ and the larger ones are 170$. I want the bigger ones so that I needn’t wait 5 years for a 6-7 foot tree. I want the birds living with us, now ! I want to enjoy the trees, now ! Is this the right way to think ? From now on, I will only accept birthday presents if they are native trees.
For my imaginary conversations with you, we are sitting in the bay window of my childhood home that no longer exists, drinking whiskey and lounging. This sort of day dreaming comforts me. Writing this blog is comforting in the same sense.

Gratitude Journal : May

Posted on May 26, 2022

To the Japanese gardens, for showing me the kind of beauty I want to create. I am learning to grow bamboo and thrifting stones from landscaping project leftovers unloaded to craigslist.
Sleep. Doing nothing. A pot of dal with rice for comfort food.
For the philosophy of Wabi Sabi. I woke up one day to the clerics at the Supreme court saying forced pregnancy is okay to impose on women. Recognize the impermanence of this instance of time and mend those broken cracks. #wabisabi
To a certain girl friend of mine for raging with me on reproductive rights. Everyone else kept telling me “this doesn’t impact you. why are you mad ?” The ruling terrorized and paralyzed me. She saved me from slipping into a dark hole.
One of my best friends in India had a back alley abortion in her teens. She nearly bled to death on that day. Had she went on to have a baby then, she would have become a prostitute after getting kicked out of her home. Saving her life sent her family deep into medical debt related poverty and they got owned by loan sharks for the next decade. The damage from untrained hands inflicted great bodily harm. The man she married divorced her on grounds of infertility and she became an unwanted women shunned by her community pushing her deeper into poverty. It took her a long time to find a husband who accepted her for her. She had twice the intelligence+energy I had but she never reached her true potential after constantly being battered by circumstances. I forgot about my debt to her, till this ruling came out. She had this deep love for land and nature. We would dig by the lake to gather clay, make pottery, make brooms from coconut leaves, build fences, climb walls and trees together, wander the fields, weave mats, catch snakes, boil roots to make magic portions, make chapattis to sell in the neighborhood, chop firewood, watch sunsets on the roof, ….be children of the dirt. I will always be grateful that I had a childhood with her and that she didn’t die on that day from her abortion. Grateful for the human rights that I still have. Grateful to anyone who will vote the extremists out of our legislature.
Is this the point of patriarchy ? To keep us women gasping for rights ? Patriarchy amply rewards the women who fall in line and punishes the rest. Aana-pana meditation on a 5 minute timer, has been helping me control my emotions and to concentrate better at work.
For my puppy. Hugging her, kissing her and staring into her eyes, can make the entire world cease to exist.
To my partner.

Reading :

From an earth-mother.

On Walks. ( I will find us one one good article on walks every month. )

this listicle.

Carbon Inequality.

Zen in Buy nothing group.

American housing.

Materialism :

Someone please buy this. I swear by mine for being the warmest jacket I own.

This green house.

Green Fire, a book on grilling vegetables.

Tiny Thoughts :

Do no harm, isn’t enough. Focus more on what to replace the void with.

Be neither an optimist or a pessimist. Just do your work well for love of work.

The men folk in my life aren’t raging for women’s rights. Fuck patriarchy.

Posted on July 14, 2022

A 12 year search.

Posted on June 27, 2022

Materialism :

Reading :

Watch :

Posted on June 20, 2022

An ode to Erin

Posted on June 18, 2022

Posted on June 16, 2022

Posted on June 14, 2022

Seating Requirements

Posted on June 8, 2022

A jewel for the living room.

Posted on June 1, 2022

Posted on May 29, 2022

Dear M

Original 2021 List* :

Moved from 2022 to 2021, for the unexpected guests**.

2022 ***:

Moved from 2022 to 2023

2023 :

Conversations we would have had :

Posted on May 26, 2022

Reading :

Materialism :

Tiny Thoughts :