What helps when I've begun haunting my own home
PLUS: The deep comforts of the low-stakes home-based reality show Escape to the Country.
Friends, I’ve been haunting my own house again. I’m experiencing a flair of my autoimmune condition and some other heavy things happening within my closest circle of people, and I’ve found myself returning to the state of non-being I assume whenever the world becomes too much. I’ve been floating from room to room and puttering about like my life depends on it.
When I feel like this — and it usually only happens when I am dealing with some really big stresses — it’s like I’ve become a ghost. I’m one of those friendly, benevolent spirits who moves objects around and attempts communication with the other people in the house, rather than some scary, vengeful ghost trying to protect and control its territory.
When I notice I’ve been ghosting in my own home I really have to pull back from a lot of my commitments so that I can focus on the basic needs that help me float through these periods. In particular, I’ve found that staying mobile and active through the discomfort works better than, say, assuming the posture of a defeat, like this lady from an 1899 Ramon Casas painting, unfairly titled “Decadent Young Woman After a Dance.”
It’s hard to feel like an authority on anything when the ground under your metaphorical feet has been shaking, hard to find joy in tracking down design stories or opinining on things you love so today I am sharing the things that are helping me get through.
Daily readings of Kate Bowler’s Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day. This book is a great antidote to toxic positivity — a compendium of short essays, meditations, and reflections for specific situations you might find yourself in as you navigate life. Some are general — for anxiety, or letting go, or regret, or disappointment. But I can always find a section that meets me where I am. Lately I’ve been turning to the sections: “When you’re certain that today will be too much,” “Not drowning in other peoples’ problems,” “When you are in pain,” and “When things are falling apart.”
Turning off Poor Things and turning on Keep It (the podcast). We tried to watch the Emma Stone vehicle, and couldn’t finish. Too dark, too sad, too grotesque for me at the moment. Aborting projects, even an entertainment, is anathema in our household (we are tried and true commitment lovers) but turning this off felt good. On the plus side, I really loved the Oscars this year because my old journalism school classmate Louis Virtel now writes for Jimmy Kimmel and I got to guess which jokes were his throughout the show. Then he did a fun rundown on his pop culture podcast Keep It.
Watching my #1 comfort television, Escape to the Country, while I fold the never-ending laundry in my house. Here’s the premise: A rotating cast of British real estate agents works with the most uncompelling and uninteresting couple they can find in their quest to move from city life to someplace in the country — usually in Hartfordshire, Gloucestershire, Derbyshire, generally one of the “shires.” There is big Hobbit energy in this one.
It is always a couple that’s been slogging it out in some metropolis for decades and is finally ready to make good on their desire to be surrounded by rolling hills, sheep, placid lakes, walking trails, cute-as-a-button villages, and other classic small town tropes. They look at three houses based on their specifications, including a “mystery house” at the end, which is usually a barn or chapel conversion, or a real fixer upper, or less often, something that’s been built by a famous architect. Along the way, the couple gets a chance to discover some cultural aspect of the region they are exploring moving to, like Bronze Age sculpture or violin-making or the harvesting of gourmet ocean salt.
In the nearly 10 years that I’ve been watching Escape to the Country (now in its 24th season), I can only remember one time where the couple actually ended up buying the home in the end. They always say they want the charm of a true country home, but upon visiting them, the doorways are short and the modern amenities are few and as much as they say they say they want things cozy, it turns out they don’t want to live like Hobbits after all.
Usually, the couple has a little sit-down at the end where the couple talks about where they are in the decision-making process and how they might proceed, which usually involves just having another look at one of the properties, but even when they do put a bid in, they rarely get the home. There is no satisfying conclusion, no built-in payoff, no happy end. It is pretty much the opposite of American television, so rooted in orchestrated drama and high-stakes fast cuts.
This show is pure vicarious thrill — as long as your idea of thrill involves meadows of goats and aftnoon teas and the occasional trip to a bronze forge. Watching it doesn’t make you take anyone’s side (like you might watching Flip or Flop), and there is no big reveal at the end like on Fixer Upper, and you won’t have to worry about the couple’s marriage like you might watching the McGees on Dream Home Makeover. No one shows up with all of their entitlements like on Househunters. Basically, Escape to the Country has the emotional resonance of the 24-hour fire log.
But sometimes, that’s exactly what I need. When the world outside gets complicated, I need the goings-on in our home to be more routine and less drama, more comfort and less action, slower and less as oppossed to faster and more. I need the stakes to be really low for a while while things out of my control work themselves out.
A therapist I know informed me that she is working with someone who hasn’t been feeling “at home” in her life. And so, together, they have decided to work through some of the exercises in my book. I can’t think of a better feeling than to know that you have helped someone with your work.
So that’s it for me this week. I’m off to do something really important, like take a turn about the backyard or watch my cat in a patch of sunlight.
This resonates beautifully. Thanks for sharing.
May I also recommend Cheap Irish Homes, in which a structural engineer says things like “there’s damp coming through the walls” and “the bathroom is in the backyard” in such a reassuring way that all my problems seem manageable by comparison.