A (Clean) Room of My Own

So Why do I want a condo? I found an amazing loft. I fell in love with it. I also fell in love with two other units, so I am perhaps appropriately cautious. I understand how people can love other people. I can understand how people love dogs. (Cats, not so much.) But how can people love space, places and locations? We do, though. What do they give to us? What do we give to them? I can see how a garden can be reciprocal, but not so much a regular place.

And yet. Last night, the Boy, Jack and I were watching Weekend at Bernie's. (The Boy was looking at his phone during the movie, which is odd because he was the one who wanted to watch this movie. I would have been happier to watch the new Nanette comedy special on Netflix, but I digress.)

In the movie, the two young men who schlep Bernie around for the weekend comment on "The view! The view!" Like they had never seen the ocean or sand before. Why do we like views? Do they make us feel calm? Do they erase our other thoughts and we relax? There must be a reason why we like or dislike the space we live in because having an emotional reaction to our surroundings seems to be universal. I am not talking about "taste" or what kind of countertops people prefer in their kitchen, though that is part of it.

How will I know when I have found the right space? I thought I loved this new condo. I did, but I find this love is like a roller coaster. One minute I find reasons to think it is divine, that it will be the center of all of my happiness, and then I think of the open aspect of the loft and think "At every morning while I am trying to sleep, Jack will be grinding his coffee and I will be pissed." Every noise he will make in the kitchen will float to the bedroom. Likewise, every noise we make in the moring will wake the Boy. There are giant sliding doors to shut, but they open on top. No grinding coffee, no emptying the dishwasher without waking everyone in the place.

Oy.

Or maybe it will be good for me and Jack not to empty the dishwasher upon waking. Instead, we will read the newspaper, a magazine, a book. Or, he can walk across the street to get his cup of coffee. It will be the city of chrissake and there are coffee shops every three feet in Seattle. Maybe we have Quiet Hours. Maybe I'll sleep like a log.

Before we watched Weekend at Bernie's, the Boy started getting my grill about how horribly messy our house is. He has a point. I have a full-time job and his father who works nights and weekends on top of the usual nine-to-five, and neither he nor his sister do any chores and I am too cheap or am challenged to pay someone to clean my house for me. So, I focus on laundry, grocery shopping, vaccuuming, etc., such that the clutter build up is getting impressive.

So this is my desk.

Yeah.

And I want to live in an open floor plan where this (see above) will have no place to hide.

Or will it?

Could that be the beauty of having two places to live? One is clean and awesome and pristine and the other looks like this (see above again, if you want to)?

I just want a clean room of my own, like one of these beautifully staged places with carefully chosen artwork on the walls and perfectly sized furniture. I can leave all of the crap in the Ravenna house.

Or maybe I want to change who I am. Instead of being NE Seattle soccer and PTA mom, and can be a version of a middle-aged urban hipster who walks her dog at the Seattle Scuplture Garden everyday and has a perfectly clean and tidy apartment with cavernous ceilings. Who catches the latest movies at the Big Picture, and hangs out at the Balck Bottle and buys her veggies from Pike Street Market. Seriously. Is that who I want to be?

Hell yeah.