Regression

Without a good laugh at ourselves in life it can be very dull indeed.

I am still working on bringing this apartment into order, though basically it looks quite good (quirky, eccentric to others).

I was struck by this image the other night as I went into my bedroom. And I laughed. It is the bedroom of a teenage girl.

And I absolutely love it. I went mad on the aqua, obviously, but there's something about it that soothes me, oceanic in ambience maybe.

The bedroom is divided in 2. One half is my office/den - I'm still working on bringing more order and creativity to that side but it is highly functional and I can find everything. I will take a photo of that when all is to my satisfaction. My desk overlooks some gorgeous trees and brilliant skies and birds. And I still have room for a separate "ladies'" desk on one of the walls where I edit and revise my work.

The bed is very comfortable, Daughter had it custom made for me in the guest room in her house in Toronto so I am pleased it was never tossed. Double/queen/king beds take up an inordinate amount of room and this suits my downsizing splendidly. And it is massively comfortable. And if I am ever required to bed-share at my age I will be as surprised as you.

Do we all regress as we age I wonder?

The comfort of the girlhood bedroom offering newfound solace in the aging process?

But yeah, I'm happy with it.

You?

Blog Jam

My mornings

Water bottle
Tao meditation
Candle
Journal
An Indian Ocean sunset from a blog friend received in the mail yesterday.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Elder Daughter

She researched a little on how mothers might live longer. Discovered that daughters, spending more positive time with their mothers, extend their lives immeasurably. Every time we get together now, she calls it "my life extension programme." I have a living example in my building. An 84 yo woman - who would put women half her age to shame - bounces out of a different car in the parking lot around 7 each night. Turns out one of her six daughters take it in turns to pick her up for dinner each night of the week. I had wondered why she was always so happy. She should live to be 180.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Love

I had been looking for a headboard for my bed for a long time. Nothing appealed. Then Daughter arrived on Mother's Day lugging this beauty along with her tool kit to install it. It is so perfect I could weep. My bedroom doubles as my den so I like the distinction of the sleep area. Plus: bonus stuff holder.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To sleep, perchance to dream.....

It is when I comment on Irene’s blog that I often get an idea for a post of my own. Out of the blue so to speak, I go off on a meandering track in my head and before I know it I’m in another place unrelated to what she has said. Like now. I was thinking of bedrooms in a comment I made on hers.

They say (and I really mean ‘they’ – I haven’t a clue where I heard this, maybe an interview on CBC radio) that we never quite leave the bedroom we had when we grew up for it is always somewhere in the psyche. That’s true for me.

I was the only girl in a family of five children for a long time. My long-awaited sister was born when I was nearly fourteen. Our house was tiny by today’s standards but considered the norm for then. A brand new semi-detached three-bedroom in a suburb of Cork, Ireland. The three-bedroom layout never made sense to me, given that the average family size in Ireland when I was growing up was six or seven children. One large bedroom where the parents slept, one medium sized (referred to as the ‘back room’) and one which was called a ‘box room’ which was 6’ X 6’. I do not jest. You could squeeze in a single bed and very little else. A small chest of drawers, perhaps. My wardrobe sat in the hall outside the door.

Still, I had the lap of luxury compared with others of my friends who had to share with sisters or kip out in the front parlour on a couch.

When my sister was born, bunk beds were squashed into the little box room. It was still luxurious as my four brothers had two sets of bunk beds and a lot of ‘aggro’ in the back room.

Since then, I’ve had various bedrooms, some vast in scale, for example one that my ex-husband and I made into a library with a fireplace and a king-size bed that could accommodate kids, dogs and cats with room to spare. Palatial. But also a little scary to me. All that wide open space never felt homey or safe. For the bedroom I feel most comfortable in is in a small one, not quite a 6’ X 6’ but a 9’ X 9’.

That’s my bedroom of today. Rather excellent high thread count sheets and pillows, a glorious duvet, a window that opens to the sea air, a chest for clothes at the end of it, and books piled on the two night-tables. A good reading lamp. Nothing more. Nothing less. And a blessed dog to guard me while I sleep.

I wouldn’t trade it for the Taj Mahal. (On second thoughts, maybe for a couple or four or one of Grannymar’s Toyboys?)

What about your bedroom?