Fly - House of Design

"Every house where love abides and friendship is a guest,

is surely home and home sweet home,

for there the heart can rest"

Henry Van Dyke

Where I Fall

I know most of my posts lately have had more to do with the reality in which we live in than the actual interiors that we spend so much time, effort, and finances in creating, but the fact of the matter is that all these things really do intermingle.

“Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.”

Charles Dickens

You see, "home" is this prestigious and wonderfully perfect place for me. No, I don't actually mean the place I grew up or even the tiny little place where I lay down my head every night. Its more about the things I surround myself with - the memories held in photographs of an amazing group of friends, pottery created the year I found out that I was a tad ADD, the kitschy accessories from countless years of shopping with my mom at random antique stores all over NC, teacups from when I lived in Yorkshire, the books that have made me happy or sad but never failed to made me think. . .so many meaningful objects put together with loads of love in order to encompass politely and refreshingly everyone who enters.

“Home, the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest”

Robert Montgomery

I don't have "strangers" in my place. I don't like "certain" people's joo joo being in my domain. This is my safe haven and I've made mistakes letting people in that I shouldn't have before. Its like there's this imaginary boundary somewhere right off the Durham Freeway and if I don't like you, you don't get to know where I dwell.

"Home is one's birthplace, ratified by memory.”

Henry Anatole Grunewald

That whole "picking up a girl for a date" thing really is an antiquated and unsafe system, because we're gonna have to really click for you to be allowed here. Furthermore, since this blog is my place to rant, if we haven't ever had like an actual conversation either on the phone or in person, then I'm offended when you ask me out. You don't know me. If you're asking someone to spend moments of their life with you - moments they will never get back and all you know about them is a picture you've painted in your head, you can pretty much expect them to be a little hesitant . . .especially if you work with this person:

“Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserved; it is life's undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room, from which we go forth to more careful and guarded intercourse, leaving behind...cast-off and everyday clothing.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe

I love allowing people to spend time here-not because I want to show off my glorious designs (its so far from finished so that is certainly NOT the case) but more so because if you're special enough for me to open my door, as cheesie as it sounds, I'm opening my heart a little bit too. I'm saying "come in, make yourself at home, make a memory with me", even if its for selfish reasons. It must be said, you see, when you leave a part of me can still feel you here; playing with Allouicious, drinking a cook-out milkshake, having a cig, eating a meal I prepared for you, perusing a book. "Come in" is an invite to ask questions about the pictures on the wall, to look through my closets and say "why have I never seen you in that?" to know a part of me that you wouldn't otherwise get to see.

"You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right."

Maya Angelou

These memories are made bittersweet when you leave. Especially if you've shared more here than just a quick chat or a bottle of wine. If I've open up my door and let you into my heart, its really hard to close that door when you walk away. I know, in my right mind, that by leaving it open and not locking the deadbolt behind you allows for all sorts of thoughts to enter, all sorts of boundaries to be laid aside, all sorts of unhappiness to unfold. My tragic flaw is thinking too much. I honestly think its one of my greatest attributes too.

"Where thou art - that - is Home."

Emily Dickinson

"I think too much" could easily be translated as "I love too much". When I call you "friend" this carries alot of weight. When I tell you "I love you" I always mean it, every single time. When I want you in my life, you better be prepared because I don't know how to do it half way. For better or worse, you're gonna get my unfiltered thoughts when I think you're wrong and you're gonna get my unending dedication when you need my shoulder. You just gotta know that you can't have one without the other.

"Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule."

Frederick W. Robertson

The wise Shakespeare once said: "love does not alter when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove - oh no, it is an everfixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken" If you knock and I let you in. . .its your choice whether or not to stay in my life but I promise you, you're gonna be in my heart's home forever.

Even if you say this:

"I thought it was the only time you could say to me that this feels right, leave me out",

you'll still always be welcomed back home if you ever change your mind.
Title and last lyric from Reindeer Section

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