Pink of Perfection

Photos: 1. Nordic trees linen napkins, 2. cabin in the snow, 3. soup, 4. fireplace in the bedroom, 5. how to do a self-portrait, 6. candles, 7. birch logs, 8. felt coffee cozies, 9. tea

Words have felt like quite a lot of bother lately, but pictures–pictures feel good. I’ve fallen deeply and quietly into the land of Pinterest and Etsy looking for winter images that feel how I want to in the deep of January: calm, cozy, quiet, creative. On the heels of a weekend like this one, where I woke up to a covering of snow on the wet gray streets and begrudgingly pulled myself out of bed and out of the house, it feels good to be quiet. Monday, the snow melted, and I walked in the rain to get the crossword (a new favorite winter-quiet activity!). Things are good, and even, but I want the muffled quiet that comes with more snow. And so, for a change, I’m making collages instead of droning on and on. You know how it is, I know you do.

• One of my projects for the new year is to give my cubicle a makeover. If I can’t manage to get together all the ingredients myself, I’m loving these terrarium kits on Etsy.

• Have you tried whole parsley leaves in your salads (as in this kale salad)? In winter salads, its fresh grassiness is a revelation. Pictured above (from left to right): fennel, red onion, and parsley salad; winter salad with lemon-yogurt dressing

• Have you ever taken an e-course? Have you wanted to? I’m taking Susannah Conway’s Unravelling course and loving it, and my mind’s been percolating away at what a Pink of Perfection e-course would look like. Would you be interested? What would you want to see covered? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

• I’ve been searching for a Cathrineholm teapot, and this might be a perfect stand-in until I find the perfect one. (How much do you love that the name of this Etsy store is During Quiet Time?)

• Do you know of a charity that helps provide low-income girls and young women with access to tutors, mentors, college scholarship money, and other resources that help level the educational playing field? Please tell me–Pink of Perfection wants to give them money!

Although there is some pain to rejoining the workaday world after a long holiday weekend, there’s also a little more room for something nice. Last night I got into bed and started in on a typical Sunday-night whine of resistance: “I don’t want the weekend to be over, I don’t want to go back to work, I don’t want to go to sleep.” But before the words even came out of my mouth, I stopped myself. And I credit Oprah. I had spent the two hours soaking in a lukewarm bath reading O Magazine‘s farewell issue to the Oprah show. There were so many stories from assistants, Gayle, and senior producers about annoyances and snafus that have come up over the past 25 years. But the resolution was always sort of the same: instead of getting annoyed or frustrated with what was happening, Oprah consciously chose to put on a smile and roll with it. And everything was fine.

So I thought right then and there: What if I just said yes? What if I just gave up the work of resisting what is (and what’s coming) and instead just decided to greet it? It took three days of camping under the stars, eating hamburgers, and drinking rosé in a swimming pool to be able to so zenly embrace the imminent work week. But it felt really nice to not voice those Sunday night whines and instead just roll over, run my hand over the crisp cotton white sheets and be grateful for the night of sleep ahead. It felt, strangely perhaps, like a burden had been lifted. It felt lighter.

Don’t you love that Sunday night suspension, when you can look out on the week ahead and it still seems serene? We pencil in our plans for kickboxing, the dinner menus, a drink with a friend, maybe even a date with ourselves to just read somewhere quiet. The days seem neat and still under our control. But when they do inevitably start spinning and getting crowded with clutter, my goal is to still just say yes to it. Something quite simple feels like a revelation but: I have this feeling that flowing with the current will feel a lot easier than kicking against it.

“Oh yes!” print from Etsy

Something horrible happened to me a couple weeks ago. I feel in love with the first few episodes of Cagney & Lacey (“It’s like a cross between Mary Tyler Moore and Law & Order SVU,” Sebastian smartly observed), only to watch as the dynamic of the show completely changed when, in episode seven, the tough and sexy Christine Cagney, as played by Meg Foster, is unceremoniously replaced by a feathered hair Sharon Gless. Also? Out go the original opening credits, in which Cagney and Lacey chase down a bad guy, cuff him, and triumph over the patriarchal system of the police force, all set to a brassy, 1970s groove. In comes a title sequence decidedly more of the Working Girl era, where our heroines pound the city streets but still get distracted by window-shopping.

I’m trying––mostly because I love Tyne Daly––to get back into it. But I keep thinking about Meg Foster and Tyne Daly. They seemed like friends as well as co-workers; part of the job description is supporting each other and having each other’s backs, all with a hard-nosed wink and a smile. Apparently, when career women work together and like each other, they seem like lesbians. But the new dynamic with Sharon Gless (and yes, I realize I’m talking about a show that is nearly thirty year old) seems more adversarial. Where’s the friendship? Where’s the heart? Perhaps it will come. I mean, the show did have a long, long successful run, even without my stamp of approval on staff changes.

So this style inspiration is dedicated to the original six episode run of Cagney & Lacey as I first fell in love with it, where the duo worked well together, liked each other, and wore awesome, awesome clothes. Key items: a-line skirts with pockets (filled with loose change for calling your husband at a pay phone about dinner), sturdy boots with enough of a heel to make you feel like a woman, a smart, sensible watch and a bangle, plaid, puff-sleeve tops, a big, cozy wrap coat to fend off the chill when you’re down at the docks, and a purse that amazingly stays slung over your shoulder as you chase down crooks.

I think old stuff is charming––the junkier, the better. This makes it very hard for me to cover ground on road trips because every giant billboard on a lonely stretch of country road for flea markets and antique malls makes me want to pull off at the next exit and dig through dusty, musty piles.

This is how I found a Girl Scout Handbook with awesome illustrations from the ’30s, my beloved turquoise typewriter, and the little lidded alpine dish that I pull my Splenda out of every morning. This is my favorite way to shop but sometimes, in a pinch, Etsy will do.

Vintage baby stuff is dear, and old French things, as we know, can have an irresistible sort of charm. Put them together and we’re talking, whoa: a match made in heaven.

Another thing about little vintage knickknacks here and there: when you’re largely shopping at places like IKEA for furniture and big ticket items, a little vintage toy on the windowsill or an old floral dish on the table can bring a big dose of history and charm to a space. It’s the kind of touch that really makes a house a home. And that even grown-ups can get behind.

Happy weekend!

I think these yarn wreaths are just about some of the cheerfullest spring decor items I’ve ever seen. I like how they are both cozy and sweetly fresh, just like season itself. The most seasonal decorating I ever do is bringing in lilacs instead of dahlias, but I’ve always loved the idea of lightening the interior of my home when things warm up. Do you swap out decorative items–throw pillows, blankets and the like? And have you seen your first lilacs? I bought my first bouquet yesterday, and they sit–already a little droopy–in the morning light of the breakfast table.

Do you ever have such a vivid picture in your mind’s eye, even thought you know you’ve never actually seen it in real life? When I see these string shopping bags, I can smell the salty air. A woman is in the sunny South of France, or maybe walking cobblestones on a foggy day in Dijon. She is headed to the outdoor market, and when she arrives, she pulls the string shoppers out from her purse and hooks them over her wrist, still empty. She walks among the stalls wearing a brown leather belt and a linen skirt with wrinkles across her lap from when she sat reading a book by the open window earlier that morning. Her hair is pulled back in two clips, and she is smelling the air and feeling the warm sun on her forearms. She picks up a round piece of fruit, chats with a vendor, tucks a head of wet, leafy greens into her bag. The bags expand as she drops in a wedge of soft cheese, garlic, a small bottle of milk, and perhaps some shiny fish fillets wrapped in stiff paper. And when the bags are heavy and filled, she walks back the way she came––in the sunshine, or in the fog––strong-armed, on her way home to make a fine lunch.

Can’t you just see it?

Happy weekend, friends! I’ll be away from my kitchen and living vicariously through yours: What’s on your kitchen agenda?

1. print, Etsy; 2. Jade yoga mat, 3. Ganapati statue; 4. succulents; 5. kilim, Ebay; 6. yellow desk lamp, West Elm; 7. Seda Japanese Quince candle; 8. pink stool, Ikea; 9. pennant throw pillow, Etsy; 10. reading chair, West Elm

This story begins in the mid-’80s with a Berenstain Bears book in which Sister Bear spends an afternoon, legs (paws?) thrown over the arm of a reading chair, a book in one hand, an apple in the other. The Bear treehouse was already the height of coziness, but this illustration clinched it: I wanted a reading chair of my own.

There’s a photograph of my mom from this same era. She is sitting in her bedroom reading chair, a soft wide thing upholstered in the cheeriest fabric of tiny, bright flowers. She is wearing a sweater vest, a striped, button-down poplin blouse, and a high-waisted, full wool skirt: perfect intellectual ’80s prep. She has a book in her hand, and she’s smiling. This, too, is etched in my mind as a more grown-up ideal. Isn’t it funny how these images stick in our minds and shape what we want for ourselves, even twenty years later? This, I imagined, is where style, ease, and pleasure meet. She looks so happy sitting there, so relaxed; and she’s wearing a really great outfit.

I once sat with a friend of mine in her very lovely apartment with its high ceilings and tall windows and a wide kitchen island. To me, it seemed perfect, but she wanted a little nook of her own, too, a “weirding room,” she said. In the context, I felt as if I knew what she meant even though intellectually I didn’t: a place for her sewing machine, collages, and yoga mat, a tiny space where all her “girl things” and projects to live safely out of sight from her husband’s curious eye.

Yesterday I finally googled “weirding room” and was taken straight to the pages of Dune. Have you guys read this classic? You’ll have to explain more fully what the implications of a weirding room might be in the context of the book to me, but what I found skimming through was a note left from one lady to another:

To the Lady Jessica––
May this place give you as much pleasure as it has given me. Please permit the room to convey a lesson we learned from the same teachers: the proximity of a desirable things tempts one to overindulgence.

If we had a room (or even just a nook) with a cozy chair tucked in the corner, surrounded by what most inspires us, wouldn’t it be fun to see how life would change should we overindulge in such desirable things?

This is my wish for 2011: to create a little space in my apartment just for me: a place to meditate, succulents lined up on the nearby windowsill, and a chair for me to throw my legs over the arm of. My mother’s sweater vest is tucked in my bureau, second drawer from the bottom.

Do you have a space like this in your home? What delights have you tricked it out with? Have you read Dune (please don’t tell me a weirding room is where they, like, murder people!)?