Home Life and The Language of Things
Monday, July 20, 2009
I like the premise, the title, and the look of Deyan Sudjic's The Language of Things: Understanding the World of Desirable Objects, and so began to read:
Never have more of us had more possessions than we do now, even as we make less and less use of them. The homes in which we spend too little time are filled with things. We have a plasma screen in every room, displacing state-of-the-art cathode-ray-tube-based television sets just five years old. We have cupboards full of sheets; we have recently discovered an obsessive interest in the term 'thread count.' We have wardrobes stacked high with shoes. We have shelves of compact discs, and rooms full of game consoles and computers. We have gardens stocked with barrows and shears and cutters and mowers. We have rowing machines we never exercise on, dining tables we don't eat at, and triple ovens we don't cook in.
There's nothing quite like reading a generalizing statement to be reminded of just how out-of-step with regular life one is. Except for the hours when I'm at the gym or dance studio 0r (occasionally) with clients and friends, I'm a full-time citizen of my old-time house. We have one antique-y TV in the family room and a second tiny, I-think-it-gets-three-channels-tops TV that belongs to my son. Just two sets of sheets per bed, and I don't really know what 'thread count' means, though I've heard the term bandied about. I wear shoes, absolutely, and I do love music, though it comes to me via an IPod and a pair of mini-speakers. We definitely have our fair share of computers in this home-office terrain. I have always wanted a wheelbarrow but there'd be nowhere to put one. My one pair of garden shears is diseased with rust. I see no rowing machine in the vicinity. We don't have a dining room in this house, but we do have one table, on which we eat, fold laundry, arrange flowers, contend with the bills, and throw mini-banquets. Finally a triple oven sounds really nice to this old fool who prepares endless rounds of lunch and dinner and yearns (I do, I admit) to be able to cook with more than one temperature at once.
I'm a minimalist by nature—overly exuberant in my hunt for beauty, it's true, but also overly insatiable in my quest for dance-able space, simplicity. I've made decisions about the way I live that have sometimes adversely affected others. Pretty, small, and simple is nice, for example, except to a son who would have benefited from having something akin to a playroom or a basement, a true gathering place for friends. Small is grand except for when I want to open my door to family and friends who find no extra bedroom here, and always too few chairs. I have an old spinning wheel where a couch should be. I have walls of books instead of loveseats. Things break more than bounce in this house of bones and flowers.
I believe in consuming less, in leaving this earth as untouched as one can. I also believe in striking a balance. I am, as of yet, a work in progress.
