her able hands

Sandra sent me a wonderful gift, the book Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Ozarks, The Rediscovered Writings. I’ve never felt drawn to Laura, having only associated her with Melissa Gilbert’s depiction on the television series. I remember enjoying the books as a preteen, but reading them again with Tyler, I found them difficult to embrace.

I hadn’t given Laura, the woman and writer, a single thought until I met Sandra. She can regale listeners with such interesting details about the life of this woman who was a pioneer in every sense of the word. Sandra’s interest runs so deep that she created a gorgeous newsletter called The Homesteader. Did you know that our dear MizUntitled had an essay in the last issue, from her post What Would Ma Ingalls Do?

Now that I’ve had a chance to read some of the pieces Laura wrote for her local newspaper when she and Almanzo lived in the Ozarks—many of the stories under her husband’s name but so clearly in her writing voice—I’m hooked. Sandra knew what she was doing when she sent me the book with the admonition to get busy writing some essays based on what I read in its pages. I feel like I’ve hit on the mother load of writing prompts for the very things I love to write about.

In the short article, “How to Furnish a Home,” November 1917, Laura writes “As someone has said, ‘Thoughts are things…’” I am painfully aware of how true that statement is right now as I look around at my barely contained chaos, a direct reflection of my scattered mind and busy life. As the at-home parent, it’s my job to cultivate the well being of our home, but lately it feels as if I’m simply adding to the discord by stretching my own time so tight.

Do you ever look around your home and wonder who chose the things that fill it? Lately I feel like somebody else moved to Ohio and set up house. I must have been having a “dark night of the soul” when I chose the Eggplant Purple for the living room walls. We don’t get enough natural light because of the roofed porch in front of the picture window. At night the walls suck up the light from three lamps like the garden sucks up water during the annual August draught. Chris loves the color, and has no desire to do all that work to change it. But to me, it’s dark and dingy feeling even when it’s clean (which is most of the time, though not today.) Yes, I do see the connection between my dissatisfaction and the fact that the place is in need of a good spring cleaning.

We’re still living with a lot of other people’s cast-off furniture, shoddily disguised with ill-fitting slipcovers, and an area rug that saw the last of its better days five years ago. We have four cats, a teenager who has yet to discover his ability to take responsibility for the debris that always rises to the surface in his wake, and a toddler. You don’t need me to explain that part, right? Why buy new furniture with a house full of creatures whose very purpose in life seems to be to destroy anything nice?

We’re also still living with quite a few of the previous owners’ What The Flippity-Flap Were They Thinking decorating choices. The all-blue bathroom, the hideous varnish on the kitchen cabinets, and the Vegas Red rug with accompanying patriotic wallpaper in our bedroom, drive me batty. But we just don’t have the time to deal with it, or the money to throw at it right now.

I’ve tried to maintain a façade of cheerful acceptance, but I have a terrible time keeping out the negative thoughts. I am constantly looking around and thinking, “Maude, this house just isn’t mine.” I’m always looking at the walls and wanting to change the color, at the curtains that came with the place, wanting to tear them down and throw them on the burn pile, but they cover the windows and cost money to replace. These thoughts pile up in the house the same way the constant influx of paper does on every flat surface. I need to learn to take a maintenance approach with my thinking the same way I have with the junk mail. If I can’t use it, toss it out.

Maybe it’s not about blandly accepting, but about continuing to find small ways to take action. If I rip out the red carpeting once the weather warms, maybe we’ll be motivated to make a new rug happen before winter comes around again. I want to paint the bedroom walls a light robins egg blue, and buy a bed skirt already, so we don’t have to keep looking at the ugly raw box spring. I want to put some art on the walls. I want to go to sleep at night in a space that feels like my safe haven, not an ugly bordello circa 1985.

Painting the office last spring made a huge difference, but it’s not finished. We need better lighting in there because it’s also where I sew, and it only has a single north-facing window. At night it’s a black hole, and I can’t get any work done without going half- blind. Those walls are waiting for some artwork and photographs as well.

I have not been able to decorate as much as I would like. I’ve put up some photos, and mirrors (wonky flea market mirrors with warped glass and ugly frames.) I turned the top of the piano into a nice display of family photos, with a few special doodads mixed in, like the rock Tyler felted in art class, and the carved wooden box that I keep my Angel Cards in. I recently added the boxes and tiny doll that Cheril gave to me in my Christmas stocking. But a lot of the items decorating our home are an expression of a Kelly who no longer exists in this world. The earth tones, and things pulled out of the yard just aren’t a full picture of how I feel. I’m drawn to pink, for gosh sake. And orange! Together, even! But I don’t let myself buy anything because our financial focus is elsewhere right now.

So that brings me to the realization that if I want to make changes, I have to make things. But except for the bibs, I don’t feel like I’m very good at that. I’m no good with a paint brush. Roller on a blank wall, sure, but brush on a canvas, or a piece of furniture? Only if I want to decorate my home in Kindergarten Chic. I might just frame Lila’s paintings then, and at least enjoy the authentic expression of her young hands and heart. But then, framing costs money. Which is why the art posters I have are still rolled up in an old blue print tube. Can you see how my negative thinking circles around? How I paint myself into a corner? I can. I can also see that I have to paint myself out of it. Cheril does that. Her home is filled with gorgeous art, and warmth that comes from the expression of her vision and heart. I want to learn to do what she does, but in my own way.

Also pushing me in this direction is my recent addiction to Alicia’s site. The way she writes about making her own personal world the most exquisite manifestation of what she finds beautiful, and how that picture is always changing, has inspired me to see that what’s going on with me is a kind of rebirth. At first when I felt so dissatisfied in our space, I wanted to just throw a Pottery Barn catalog at it, and have Instant Pretty House. But I don’t want that, not really. I want something else. Not what Cheril has, not what Alicia has, but the sensibility they both have so I too can use my home to communicate what’s in my heart.

Laura writes, “Each individual has a share in making this atmosphere of the home what it is, but the mother can mold it more to her wishes.” I think that’s true. I look at the home I grew up in, and it was always my mother’s aesthetic sense that shone through the brightest. I’ve always admired her ability to take a room and turn it into a space that makes her feel good when she’s in it. I’m not sure why I didn’t inherit her confidence about my personal style. But I’m discovering that what used to make me feel good no longer does, and I‘m eager to find what new things will bring me joy.

And let me tell you, it isn’t Eggplant Purple walls.

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