We’re not going to talk about how potentially far-distant home ownership is. Nope. This is, instead, a post about home things in the context of the house where we’re renting.

Some background:

I’m in Portland right now, writing this from the lobby of my hotel while on an evening break from attending my first ever APGA conference. (That’s APGA as in American Public Garden Association, not Advocates Professional Golf Association. There can be a lot of grass in both, but it’s an important distinction nonetheless.) Today is day two of conferencing, day three of Portlanding, and whoof, I am already exhausted.

Traveling for work is one of those life tasks that seemed glamorous and fashionably professional when I was a kid. Thirteen year old Kathy, my favorite lens through which to measure my adult achievements in life, would not believe that I am seated on a creamy leather banquette, a fluted pint of beer next to my laptop, typing away with an array of brass lights and murals and cocktails for company. She’d probably think it was freaking sweet.

Alas, thirteen year old Kathy is not thirty-three, and she doesn’t understand that your own bed is the best bed, and home is home. (And that conferences, educational and inspirational and well-meaning as they are, are by nature, conferences. And are thus deeply exhausting exercises in note-taking, coffee-consumption-regulating, and in 2022, N95 masking.)

So last night, when one of the coolest people I work with (honestly, she is so cool) invited me to her local best friend’s birthday dinner at her home, I was quick to accept. Yesterday happened to be the first full day of summer weather that Portland has seen, so while I’m sure the evening would have been exceptional regardless, it was blessed with the extra magic that is a Summer Solstice full of golden, mid-seventies sunshine and sitting on the grass with olives and soft cheese and chilled white wine with a group of people that haven’t seen the sun for six months. In London this was always the best experience and I am happy to report that it was the same here in Portland.

The entire evening gave me a really interesting combination of feelings that I haven’t fully processed yet. That’s part of why I’m sitting here, writing about it. First, I was surrounded by such clearly amazing people. One of the women I met had a very similar recent experience to me – she had been living in Brooklyn for 12 years, working in corporate retail, and got laid off in the pandemic. Between that, the sudden distance created by an inability to visit home and her nieces, and the realization that retail is some ruthless-hustle-based bullshit, she decided to move back home and change careers. She felt an even stronger version of the bittersweet longing for Brooklyn that I feel for London, given how long she had lived there. But she knew she made the right decision and she is in the right place now, and she was happy with her imperfect decision because really, all decisions are imperfect.

The amazing woman whose home we visited, who has the fortune to call the longest day of the year her birthday, had not only the most impeccable taste in all things design, but shares with me some fairly random passions. A jeweller by trade, she specializes in English antique pieces, and has her own collection of enamel Victorian mourning rings (one of my favorite types of antique jewelry), which she pulled out and shared with me on the grass in the backyard while the sun set. She even, as one of her pieces of daily jewelry, wears a Tudor-era memento mori ring – something I have aspired to have of my own for years.

And then there was her home. An early 1900’s craftsman, with its small porch, original hardwood floors, chartreuse kitchen cabinets, and Persian stairwell runner of salmons-and-oranges-and-browns, was an absolute dream. White brick fireplace. MCM built-ins but a lived in, cream linen sofa. Palette-knifed original artworks and lamps with stained glass shades handmade by her father. An oversized, oil pastel Picasso gallery print the sole work living above the fireplace. Cupboards full of vintage plates and hand-thrown ceramics. And above all, an open, easy grace reflected in her hosting and her own personal energy, that permeated every part of the place. As I told her when I thanked her for her hospitality before catching an Uber home, “Not to sound completely creepy, but I love everything about the home you’ve created. It is wonderful.”

All of which is the background to the first sentence I wrote here. We’re not going to talk about home ownership and how distant that feels. We’re going to celebrate the progress in what my home is now, an imperfect place that I share with a human whose imperfections complement my own, which all works together to create a place that I would very much rather be than in a swank boutique hotel lobby. So while my intent with this post was actually to talk about the specific pieces of interior design progress I’ve made in our own (albeit rented) craftsman bungalow, it turns out the bit I really wanted to talk about was how it’s all come together to feel like a home worth missing.