How does a shared space become a home? Living with friends has been an incredible entry into Colorado, leading to mutual experiences and empathy. My roomies and I spend time together and apart. This week, we spring-cleaned. Amazingly, we all had time for a movie night, too, watching the sweeping, opera-satire-martial arts film Shadow. It’s the most the 4 of us have intentionally spent together as a fam.
Spring cleaning nurtured an unexpected shifting of spaces. Thanks to our collaborative creativity, the entry/dining room, already on-brand with records instead of TV, no longer has 3 tables. In place of 1 of the tables, a circular high-top, is a keyboard, plants, and art. Where a dining table once sat is now the happy nothing. More space has already fostered floor yoga, board game nights, and lounging life talks.
Removing the circular high-top table and a few chairs in the entryway led to a coffee clutch of my own, in the space next to my bed where the Writing Chair once lived. The Writing Chair served its purpose for a few months. And when it was no longer meeting my needs, I too enjoyed the nothing that is floor space.
But it’s time once again to make intentional space for me. My roomies and I made a coffee clutch next to my bed. The table itself is intentionally vacant, save for a converted cup that hold circular notes, pens of every color, pencils, and a pair of scissors. Behind the coffee table sits my overstuffed bookshelf, with goal-centered books at its top (should I read Felicia Day, Maria Popova, and Sasha Shillcutt first?). Blessedly, for the first time ever, my whiteboard/cork-board is up on the walls! Instead of promoting specials, it’s my to-do list on the whiteboard and a collage of art, photos, and stamps on the cork board. Nurturing true coffee shoppe vibes.
Coffee is not a vice; it helps me come home to myself. Certainly, the coffee clutch is a cue for cozy rituals. A morning person, I have not overslept once over break. Instead, I start each day by pouring grounds into a French press. As brown bean water becomes black coffee, I sit or scurry in anticipation. The buzz of new beginnings. Before pouring that first cup, I make space for wandering in wonder, sometimes writing at the high-top table. And these morning scribbles are revealing:
When I think of the “have-tos” of my day, it’s almost all summed up by writing, wondering, and wandering. And coffee starts it off.
And while I don’t always have coffee at this table and sometimes get to work, I have also had life talks at this very space. Indeed, life talks (coffee talks, as I like to say) are amongst my favorite activities with others. Indeed, making a space for coffee and/or connections also make space for joy, clarity, and comfort.
Through these and other small shifts to our home, I now sit. Yes, actually sit, and give space for the inevitable wanderings of my thoughts and feelings. I am grateful to be typing away against a sturdy table instead of soft bed. I adore this coffee, poured into my favorite mustard cup, something that survived the move from Wisconsin to Colorado and will hopefully survive many more.
Sip by sip and word by word, I am coming home: to my cup, my words, my home, my heart.
How do you make home out of shared spaces?
2 thoughts on “Systems Review: March 2024”