“My two grandmothers were just it for me. And it’s interesting, I never remember them teaching. I just remember that they went about their days in their homes with peace and calm and good cheer…. There wasn’t anything intellectual they bestowed. You could just see it in them, this satisfaction in them being them.”
“I think [creativity is] so much environment. You set yourself up for it to be promoted in you. So I would say I have spent most of my life creating a studio where I can do my best work…. We make our environments; they don’t just happen.”
– Jeanne Steiner
My mom’s interview last week got me thinking about all the things in the background of our lives that we don’t always focus on in our thinking-and-doing world. When I reread her interview, I could feel my mom’s way of being jump off the page—the enthusiasm and warmth that shines like a bright light on her shoulders, making the people around her feel warm too. I could also picture her sitting in the art studio she has created for herself with the door shut, smiling. In not only what she said but also how she said it, the same message kept coming through: environment and ways of being matter. They really matter.
We hear a lot about tidy spaces and organization and minimalism or maximalist design these days. About trending colors and insta-hacks. But you know the feeling when you walk inside a house and it fits the people who live there like a glove? When you just feel good and settled inside that space and don’t want to leave and aren’t quite sure why? The Danish word hygge captures this feeling of coziness when family or close friends are in a homey, quiet location.
My mom described my great-grandmas’ homes that way. My grandmas created homes that felt that way too. One had a tidy apartment that smelled like pie-crust and was the perfect environment for indulging my love of quiet games and talking about meaningful things over a meal that showed care in every bite. The other had a house full of sentimental objects and photos of family that smelled like lemon Pledge and leather. It was a place I felt comfortable asking real questions and being my true self (who is always a little bit on the verge of tears). These spaces seep into us. My parents have created a home like this too. Comforting and inviting and full of reds and purples and art and photo frames. It’s a space I love bringing my daughter into.
What’s in the background really matters: the ways of being behind the actions; the environment behind the grandmother; the creative space behind the artist. We communicate so much in how we move in the world and how we make our environments.
The wonderful Colorado poet laureate
recently wrote, “I, like the avocados, can measure my readiness by my softness. Life is ripe. Sweet and perfect and almost over, for all of us.” When we think about legacy, we often reflect on accomplishments and lessons imparted. But think of the stories people tell at funerals. What makes everyone in the room tear up in recognition are not stories about accomplishments. They are words about a characteristic laugh, a quirky movement, how a person made you feel. When I think of my brother Ben, I think of his heavy hand on my shoulder when I was upset; the slow and pondering way he moved through the world. And closely tied up in how someone makes you feel is the environment they live in. When I think of my grandmothers, I think of them and the spaces they create together in the same breath.This week, I’ve been trying to bring the background into the foreground. I’ve been telling my people what I love about how they are and asking myself where my space feels like me, and where it doesn’t, how I can change it.
May I someday become as avocado-soft and unabashedly sentimental as the home around me.