Down The Rabbit Hole

It occurred to me, last summer as I was wedged into one corner of our living room sofa trying desperately to read the new Harry Potter book by the dim light of the only lamp in the house, that we needed a better place in this house to read a damn book without going blind. I don’t like to read on the couch. To me, the couch is for TV-watching, laptop-browsing, and cocktail-enjoying. I also don’t like to read in bed for any extended length of time. Ten, fifteen minutes tops. Then I fall asleep. But when I wanted to sit down and read a book, there was really no good spot in the house to do it.

And we have this room. This room that, for several years, had been my office/the room with the futon where my parents sleep when they come visit. For a long time I was reluctant to do anything with it, because I figured that it was going to be a baby’s room “one day”, and I didn’t want to get ahead of myself or jinx the baby thing or whatever.

But in the past couple months I thought to myself, that’s stupid. It’s a perfectly good room, and yes, we will have a baby “one day” and then it will be the nursery, but until then, I could turn it into a reading room. A nice, comfy, warm reading room, maybe with a squishy chair and good lighting. I could even use it as a meditation space, because up until now I’ve been meditating on my bedroom floor and invariably end up staring into my closet and thinking about shoes.

So I did it. First I painted the room a lovely pale yellow color. Then, we got some new bookshelves so that, for once, we can have all our books in one place. Next, for Christmas, Hawk gave me a chair. Or, he told me that for Christmas he would buy me whatever chair I wanted. So we went chair shopping and found the perfect one! It’s a super soft reclining armchair and I’m sure that I will be spending hours and hours in it, reading to my heart’s content. And then leaning it back and having a nap. I also got beautiful curtains made. I feel so adult,what with the buying window treatments and all!

detail of the painting we bought back in December

Especially with the happenings of the past few days, I am really glad that we decided to do this. I need to take care of myself right now, to be gentle with myself, and what better way than curling up with a good book, or closing the door and meditating in the quiet. When I am at home, I feel warm and safe, and my new sanctuary embodies that perfectly.

A couple months ago, Hawk and I commissioned a very talented friend of ours, Katrina Bea, to create a piece for the space above our bed. Her work is stunning - raw and emotional, delicate, yet strong and evocative. The only suggestions or requests we gave her were that we would like an animal and maybe a tree.

This week, she delivered our painting, which she titled ‘Release’:

(click to enlarge)

We were both absolutely speechless. It is so perfect, so exactly what we had in mind. It is so powerful, so provocative, and it became even more so once she started telling us about it.

The woman in the painting is in a state of release, with her head and her abdomen unattached from the rest of her. Katrina is a dear friend of ours and knows what I’ve been going through in terms of my fertility and anxiety, and this was her way of depicting my desire to ‘let go’ of both my emotional and physical troubles.

The hawk (obviously symbolizing Hawk) above her is cradling her in his wings, protecting her.

There are flower blossoms all over her, because she herself, as Katrina put it, is “blossoming”.

The snake is a powerful symbol of male fertility and is wound around her.

I knew that whatever Katrina made us would be beautiful, but I had no idea it would be so meaningful, so poignant. This painting embodies so perfectly the journey that Hawk and I are on together, I can hardly wrap my mind around it. We are so lucky to have such a talented and dear friend. We will both treasure this painting for the rest of our lives.

Nate and I made it back to LA last night, thank god. I managed to get us on an earlier flight - a good thing, since our original flight didn’t end up leaving until almost 9pm. The landing into Burbank was the most turbulent I’d ever sat through - up, down, side to side. I thought I was going to hurl.

All the turbulence was due to the nearly 50mph winds through the valley last night. Winds so strong, we actually lost a fairly good size limb off of one of our trees. It landed across our neighbor’s driveway. And another one of our trees has two limbs that are now resting very precariously on another tree. That one we need to call a tree service for.

I didn’t manage to get any pictures of the fallen limb before Hawk started cutting it up (it was too big to move on it intact), but here it is in many pieces:

Here you can see where the limb ripped away from the trunk:

After almost seven months, it’s finally (pretty much) done. All that’s left is some minor tweakage to paint and base boards, and we’re going to put in some shelves in the back corner. But how sweet is the sink? And the shower/bathtub is huge. It’s so much nicer than it was before.

Hubby is under the house as we speak connecting the drain.