Spring got you rage cleaning? Don’t stop at your home.
Nesting for self-care as the world crumbles is fine, but where do democracy and citizenship fit into your home life?
I’m Emily Grosvenor, a design magazine editor and the author of the book Find Yourself At Home.
The nation’s public programs are being demolished, but my house sure looks good. It should, since I’ve traded my regular diet of news media for rage-cleaning and the singular balm of house and garden projects.
Spring turns me into a zany ground squirrel every year, but this season, my nesting urge feels different. Instead of joyful puttering set to the soundtrack of light rainfall, the act carries a strong taste of “control what you can” with a large helping of “la la la birdsong covering up Trump’s voice!”
I realized my current level of blind and frantic domesticity might be a problem when I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in over a decade. We spoke for the only five minutes we had about our current shared imperative to avoid current events by decluttering.
By the seventh time I had this same conversation with people in public – what are you doing to avoid the news? – I realized there is a larger issue afoot. We have all lived through a recent history that convinced too many comfortable Americans that everything a person could want in life can be achieved through life in our own four walls. Too many Americans no longer have a public concept of home.
The shift from public life to private has been well-documented. Between 2003 and 2022, the amount of time U.S. adults spend in their homes increased by one hour and 39 minutes a day. Roughly 14% of the U.S. workforce now works entirely from home. About 26% of all college students take classes exclusively online. The number of Americans who are housebound increased from 5% to 14% during the pandemic. About a quarter of Americans regularly access telemedicine from home. More than a quarter of Americans stream church services (27%).
What child shares when they don’t have to? Instead of having meaningful conversations about what can and should be shared, Americans that are comfortable often aspire to have at home what used to be had in public – a personal garden instead of a public park, a private gym instead of a community one, a backyard living space instead of a public camping spot, a home coffee bar instead of a local coffee shop, a basement movie theater instead of a city cinema, a private library instead of a public one.
That’s one reason the recent firings of 1,000 National Parks employees cut so many so deep. Yosemite doesn’t fit in a Target aisle.
What hasn’t been taken out of the public sphere and translated for life at home? What personal desires can’t be had within your own four walls?
Well, in the house tours I write about as a design editor, where homeowners invite readers to see the magic of transforming a home from this to that, I never hear people talking about how they have made space at home for democracy. When I interview designers, there is never a nod to the vintage desk homeowners use to write their congressional advocate. No one points out the styled vignette of political signs in a homeowners’ in their front yard (Get the look!). Design folks on TikTok don’t nod to the books of political thought that have formed the value system that drives their own political engagement. Never have I seen the Live-Laugh-Love version of a political poster in a design magazine.
To be sure, I am part of the complete privatization of personal values. As a work-at-home editor whose writing is devoted to exploring the home space, I have celebrated domesticity and home-making as the way to get what you want in life. To me, home is where joy resides. I love making a home, being at home, and being hosted in other peoples’ homes. I like to control what comes into my home, and some days, I just can’t have my home be a stage for the national conversation.
But if we are going to do everything at home now, I am ready for a conversation about how Americans are building democracy into their homes. I am ready for citizenship to be designed back into our lives.
So if your current home-based anger management program involves changing what you can inside your walls, you might consider house projects that allow ideas of citizenship and political engagement to thrive.
If you’re like my friend, writer Melissa Hart, you might buy a larger coffee table and start inviting your friends over for mini-campaigns inspired by whatever outrageous thing happened that day.
If you find yourself losing faith in your neighbors (or don’t even know them), you might build a porch out front or break out the lawn chairs in the front yard instead of scrolling the evening news.
Or, if you’re like me, just someone whose regular vibe is to look around you and think: “This will not do!” you might start with expanding the geography of what you call home when the urge to rage clean hits you..
Democracy has a lot in common with a house, after all. Homes can be constructed, they can be remodeled, and they can be rebuilt. They can certainly be, like the government we have now, what designers call “remuddled” – remodeled with no respect for taste or history.
Questions no one has asked me
📖Do you read other writer’s book proposals for money?
Yes, ma’am. Ok someone did ask me this a couple of days ago. I am working through one right now that is totally something I would buy. I think that’s the key for me. I’m not sure that I am the person to give feedback on a book about sailboats and their lore, but I can certainly give notes on something geared towards my exact psychographic and demographic from a person I’ve followed for three years. If you have something for 40s-era serial iterators, I’m happy to take a look emilygrosvenor [gmail.com].
🎥 Is it worth it to rewatch Thelma & Louise?
Oh yes. My friend Blake mentioned it to me the other day when he and his wife, Jess, met us at Domaine Willamette for lunch. He said they were Thelma & Louising it! I’m not sure how my memory of this movie is all Brad Pitt and hanging out with your bestie, but friends, it is not the comedy I remember. It is GRITTY. And gorgeous.
🎧 Who gets you through the dishes?
My old University of Iowa college Louis Virtel is living his dream as a Hollywood hanger-on, which is a crappy way to say that he is one of the most sought-after and beloved L.A.-based cinema gays and comedy writers. He is the absolute best. He does a podcast called “Keep It” with Ira Madison, III, and it is my absolute favorite chore-elevator. Louis writes for Jimmy Kimmel Live as his main job. Star eyes!
🎨 How’s that art mom era thing going?
My friend
has taken over the art night so I took a mindless paint-by-number over there and met with some women for a few hours. One of them has had basically the exact illness I’ve been pulling through and the same level of gaslighting and a similar journey with medical googling. And she lives in my neighborhood!🏡 What’s going on in your house?
Oh gosh, I painted a room and now I remember that I don’t actually love painting rooms. We’ve moved our 12-year-old away from the front of the house to a different bedroom because — ta da! — he said the previous room had bad juju in it. More on this later. But for now I’ve got three blue walls and an empty wall for wallpaper. Also more on that later. It’s already better. People want to be in there. I’m going to make it a teen hangout space so they stick around a bit.
😦What have you been doing differently?
I’m writing a movie! It’s amazing. I have no idea how to do it and that feels so freeing to me right now. Unlike with essays, where I know where they suck as I am typing the words, this has been flowering with a lot less self-correction and mid-write editing. Joy! I’m always pretty good at the big picture, so I went in knowing basically what it was about and how I wanted to get my hero from here to there, but I’m finding something I’ve needed for a while. Ease. Isn’t that just like a movie hero? She thinks she wants a screenplay. But what she really needed all along was EASE.
What I did not expect today was to read a profound commentary about democracy wrapped up in interior design. Like you, I’ve never used the American flag to decorate, but right now, I just might. For me, the flag and the Star Spangled Banner hit differently. They stand for a constitution and a history that is deeply in jeopardy and I feel a need to reclaim what the flag has been used for over the past few years, specifically by those who mean to cause harm.
Wow. I didn’t mean to go on that tangent, but I also wanted to say that the idea of including places in the home where people fight against authoritarianism is a great one. I saw a new movement to write physical letters to representatives instead of emailing or calling. Voicemails and emails can be deleted with a click of a button, but opening letters costs man power and cannot be deleted as easily. Here’s to designating a desk for that!