Room Tour: My Bedroom

I feel like I can't talk about our new house without referencing the shortcomings of our old house, which feels like a betrayal, like talking with your new lover about all the things you didn't dig about your old lover. This was our old bedroom. I loved it, too. Especially after I ripped up all that carpet, pried up every last staple and nail, and painted the floors white.

But in our newer bedroom, I feel like I've captured all of my weird tastes in one space. It's a collision of references, and it somehow all works: Weird antiques! Nautical! Granny! Global! Scallops! Midcentury! It's all there, and even though none of it "goes," it's like everyone has agreed to get along anyway.

I painted the walls Sherwin Williams' Mt. Etna, which is blacky, bluey, greeny color that gives me lots of feels, and then I painted the trim the same color (but in a glossier oil).

The doors to our closet and bathroom are a new addition. I got them from the Home Depot website--they're supposed to be installed as bifold, but I installed them like french doors with these art deco antique doorknobs I got from this shop on Etsy. I painted them the Mt. Etna color. They weren't quite long enough, and there was a couple inch gap between where they ended and the floor begins so I put some garage door weatherstripping stuff at the bottom as an easy fix. I was worried it was going to look like crap, but it's all good.

In the closet, I put Benjamin Moore "Mystic Lake" on the walls and "Queen Anne Pink" on the ceiling. I'm tired just thinking about how much time I've spent painting all these surfaces, but it was worth it. This room has mucho soul. The light fixtures were a steal from Gilt, and I installed them myself. They're ridiculously large for a closet, and that's why they're exactly right.

A Solo Trip to Ocracoke

Last week, I went to the Outer Banks to work on my novel, a coming-of-age story that's been unfurling in my head for a few years. (I'm gonna finish writing this motherfucking thing this year if it's the last thing I do.) I needed to get out of its way and just be with my characters, away from emails, chores, errands, my kids and my life.

It was my first vacation by myself, and I went into it not knowing anything except that I was being called back by Ocracoke--the tiny island I had stayed on with my family four years earlier--and that I planned to write, put my phone down (except to take a lot of pictures of signs apparently) and just be with myself. What I couldn't know when I left Nashville is that, at age 35, I would be doing my own coming of age on Ocracoke.

Every single moment of those five days was exhilarating.

Even though I came for solitude, I still sought out connection, more earnestly and purposefully than I do in my "real" life. Every night I took myself out for dinner and drinks, and during the day I eavesdropped at the coffee shop and talked to shop owners and walked for hours. I smiled at everyone. I met some people--people I scheduled interviews with (the high school principal, a local historian, a librarian who let me leaf through old newspapers) and people who I ran into at night. People who were also summoned to Ocracoke. People who are fans of inky black nights shot through with stars and the quiet of the ocean and old boats as yard art. People who don't mind being isolated and who don't give a single shit about climbing the corporate ladder.

But the most important person I met on Ocracoke is myself. I had been buried for so long. Numb. I don't want to be that way anymore.

Some quotes I've been meditating on:

"I walked for miles at night along the beach, composing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me." --Anna Quindlen

"Jonathan and I sat on the small gravel beach and debated why large bodies of water are so alluring. I said it was all about color, and he said it was space. No one could pave it or build on it or sell anything on it. It's just a huge relief for our eyes, he said. But for me it's something more. The water always seems to be saying something to me, urging something from me, though I never know exactly what it is." --Lily King

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." --Ernest Hemingway

"I was reminded of the Four Immutable Laws of the Spirit: Whoever is present are the right people. Whenever it begins is the right time. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened. And when it's over, it's over." --Anne Lamott