Wednesday, September 30, 2015

The Stationary Flâneur

I.  Here's what I was working on at Craft-n-Chat-n-Snack [Sewing] Group last night: 
my usual, sewing things on other things. 

These are quite small---each about 2 inches square.

The squares aren't for anything, and I don't plan them, per se; I just cut up some fabric and start sewing.
Of course I choose everything about them, so that's not random at all: 
I am the organizing principle [there must be a name for that role], and they come out looking like me, same as handwriting does.

They're how I see life, I suppose: 
patterns emerge––just try and stop them–– and there's some pleasure in playing with that. 
(Unless they're cancerous or something--though Augustine said even a rotting body is beautiful, if you can see it dispassionately,  (manifesting as it does the organizing principle of God, as he would name it, and I know what he means, though I would name it nature.)

II. The Room

It's been a month since Mz moved out, and it's been a little weird, but pretty much OK. The sadness and shock came before, I guess. I'm even feeding myself real food again (not just fast food). Mz had brought me some nice groceries from her workplace, which helped jump start that.

This morning I'm sitting in her old room. It took a month, but it's finally done. It's nice, especially in the morning sun and uncluttered as it is--something that will disappear the moment I start sewing in it. (Hm... maybe I won't--I could keep sewing in the kitchen.)
 (Btw, I'm taking photos with my broken camera---the only part that's actually broken is the view screen, but I'm finding if I shoot from several different angles, it usually gets what I want.)

I did not envision the yellow-brown-orange colors for this room at all. I was thinking blue. The organizing principle here is not my choice of colors but of friends. 

Once I swore I would never talk about furniture, but....
The brown rug's from Laura, and my home-owner pal painted the walls years ago.   
While I was in Milwaukee, Jill dropped off the desk and narrow chest of drawers (for sewing supplies), and my auntie gave me an old orange-y rag rug of hers (from Pier 1)--you can just see it along the bottom.

All I chose was the white window paint.
Well, I also found the Ikea chair in the alley years ago.

This is the first time in the thirteen years I've lived in this house that I've had a room facing the street instead of the alley and yard next door. 
I love it. 

It's noisy outside--as I write this, a woman is walking past talking so loudly on her phone I can hear her conversation through the closed windows-- but the raging druggy neighbors are long gone, so it's mostly the jumble of humanity I like to be able to see outside my window. 

It's the lazy person's flânerie: instead of strolling idly, I can sit idly in place and watch the patterns form as the world strolls by me. 

8 comments:

Michael Leddy said...

“The lazy person's flânerie”: I like that phrasing.

Frex said...

Thanks, Micahel!
I admit the prhase made me smile, since a flâneur is already pretty lazy. :)

Zhoen said...

Needle doodling, a snug room, and lively entertainment. I loved watching street life when we lived in Boston. It's pretty good along here now, as well.

Krista said...

❤️

Lady Chardonnay said...

What a beautiful sunny yellow room! I feel cheerful and at peace just looking at it.

Fresca said...

ZHOEN: Your neighborhood seems a little like mine.

KRISTA: Thanks! How'd you make a heart?

LADY C: It is a nice room, thanks, yes. But alas the rugs aren't as cushy and plush as the one you found at IKEA...

bink said...

Your room looks great! I wish I had such a nice space to watch the world go by. Somehow, the unheated front porch has never quite cut it...

Frex said...

BINK: Alas, this room is uninsulated and quite cold in winter---I'll have to use a space heater.