Well, it seems 8538 kms. in one month just wasn’t enough driving for me, so last weekend I jumped in my car to locate 1,900 square kms. of sand dunes – in Saskatchewan. Now I know that 99.999999% of you did not even know there were sand dunes in Saskatchewan. Yup.

On my interminable, meandering drive from Calgary, I made a point of stopping at every weathered grain elevator (4),

and take a collection of pictures that any archivist would envy, of sun-bleached buildings collapsing in on themselves, surrendered completely to time and gravity.

Keep reading folks, because it’s bound to get helpful.

Driving through the small towns and villages, I didn’t spot a single person, even though it was a Saturday.

I finally got to the village of Sceptre, home of 15 faded murals, and at the  “Closed for the Season” Great Sand Dunes Museum, there is a tiny piece of paper taped on the window with driving instructions. “Turn right at the wildlife viewing area sign onto the gravel road, follow the curve to the right, turn left at the white sign. The sand dunes are just past the cattle gate.” Easy.

There were intriguing turns. I didn’t know what I would find when, and if, I got there: maybe just a big sand pile in a scrubby bush clearing with a few rabbits hopping around. 

Following the meagre instructions, given I am someone with an instruction challenge disorder, I finally pull into the tiny parking lot, one that could accommodate maybe ten cars if everyone parked logically. 

As the clouds of dust settled, I look up and I stop breathing for a moment. It looked like the abandoned set of Lawrence of Arabia.
 

Off to my left, I spot something high on a hill. Curious, I make my way up the steep slope, the sand deep and silica soft, the kind you might feel between your toes at the most luxurious beaches. The hill I was now walking up, I would later read, is Boot Hill, named for the late John Both, a rancher who cared for the dunes for 57 years. At the top of the hill was a wooden arch with dozens of cowboy boots nailed on haphazardly. Both had initially nailed a pair of his old boots to it, inspiring dozens to follow sui

Looking south and east, there are dramatic waves of sand, and more gold rising in the distance, each dune standing at least 15 to 20 metres high. The area was so vast and empty, it was hard to determine the distance between each dune and even the crests within them.

And I was completely alone.

Not to be afraid when you are all alone is the only true way of being not afraid.                                                                                                                -Olga Jacoby

So here is the question.  How brave can we be in our aloneness without feeling unsafe, uncomfortable, or even afraid?

The freedom of traveling alone, eating alone, living alone, or walking alone, gives us the opportunity to pay a certain kind of attention – to really “look” at things fully.  For me, much of the visceral benefit and potential of listening, of watching, of doing, is not possible when shared.  Our culture stigmatizes aloneness. Being alone is a difficult discipline. It is seldom allowed, condoned, nor given safe practice. Anyone who chooses to be alone is often feigned as hollow as the hole in the centre of a doughnut, weird or just a plain loser.

I have often observed that as soon as I engage someone in conversation that is alone, they are quick to point out that they either have a partner lurking nearby, resting in their room, or recovering from a hangnail operation in the hospital – in other words, they aren’t alone. 
 

I like to think that they may be bordering on something close to envy when learning I am travelling alone, but usually they just find a reason to move to another table. This may tell more about me than it does of them.

Yea, the road to enlightenment is long and difficult. Don’t forget to bring snacks and magazines.
 

By the way, I found the tree that Constables Davis and Karen lurked behind trying to catch speeders on Corner Gas.

We often don’t take time to contemplate, to reflect on our experiences fully until we are alone. Many of us are not brave enough to delve to the depths of the wellspring to bring up forgotten gems, and scrape off the grit. As we grow and change, we may come to understand our experiences differently and do the hardest thing ever – forgive ourselves, leading us to our deepest bravery. To overcome loneliness, we first have to be aware we are lonely, then confront its lurking shadows. We cannot bypass it. The goal is to be comfortable being alone with ourselves without disassociating from the world.

Loneliness is a paper cup.

Nowadays, we can’t even be comfortably alone with a coffee without barricading ourselves behind a screen, barely lifting our heads. Or we grab a coffee To Go, not sitting to enjoy it in a proper mug, converse with someone, or daydream.

Loneliness can make us more capable of true intimacy – if we ever get the opportunity. 

By the way, the last time I was someone’s type, I was donating blood.
 

Loneliness makes us develop our own point of view, not repeating what we think everyone else thinks. Loneliness gives us character. And if all else is lost, I’m counting on it to make me unaccountably alluring and elegant.

The greatest dis-ease now facing humanity is a painful, throbbing loneliness and profound sense of disconnection – disconnection from their body, from others, and from the world. There is an undercurrent belief that everything should be pleasurable, mainly positive, and easy enough. This makes for a constant search for distractions, of busyness, short-circuiting learning and increasing emotional immaturity.  What separates the mature from the immature is, perhaps more than anything else, a content capacity for being on their own without distraction, to think about who they are and their experiences, allowing themselves to ‘feel’ their feelings, even when they may be difficult and hugely unwelcome. They don’t erect defences to hedge against loneliness by finding someone or something to prevent them from any risk of understanding their own mind.

As I walk back to the parking lot, I see the best thing ever.  A man and women were getting out of their car. Then out from the back tumbled 3 little preschoolers, sand pails and plastic shovels in hand.  No iPads. No iPhones. No beeping technology. They came to play on the sand dunes.

One can grow used to cosy mediocrity.

I’m back…from driving 8538 kilometres through 8 states in 30 days, and lying under bad botanical prints in teeming motel rooms. This, a peregrination I had planned and agreed to pay for.What counted, I thought, was staying power, and this I meant to have in spades.I also thought I needed to bring my level of tolerance up a notch – all the while contemplating the contents of hotel mini-bars, relishing a dry martini, and dreaming of first class accommodations.

For most of history people simply just viewed places and art, stayed awhile to experience and enjoy them, maybe contemplated alone or conversed with their travel mate, but with the rise of smart phones, people just take pictures. Tourists now spend their time poking a two-dimensional version on their touch screens, and in David’s case, mostly at his genitals.There is such a thing as going to a place and not actually being there.Our culture is obsessed with celebrity and panicked for instant approval, the counterfeit crowns that come in the form of reposts, retweets and likes. People takes pictures of anything they see without even seeing them.   In Yellowstone National Park, I watched as a twenty-something girl recorded Old Faithful faithfully erupt with a Go-Pro in her left hand while texting on her phone with her right hand, not once looking up. (You are probably wondering why I was watching the girl instead of watching Old Faithful erupt.) Because there are certain necessary tasks that coarsen the quality of my everyday life.  And the world starts to divide.

I watched as tourists jumped out of their vehicles and videoed the scene in front of them, pressed pause, and immediately turned their back to go  – where? – the next spot to record?  I watched as children used mobile screens in restaurants, streets and on beaches in lieu of conversation or interaction, not watching or listening to the pleasures around them, nor playing with sand buckets. This all made me feel spiritually itchy.But to be frank, I can be something of a whiner.  Before we think about travelling anywhere, even it is only to the nearest cantina, we need to question its usefulness if we do not know how to look or notice what we have already seen.  We need to think not only about where we go, but why and how.Because,” as Airbnb CEO, Brian Chesky, affirms: “travel has never really been about where you go. It’s about the person you’ve become when you return.”

When we travel, we are often prone to forget one crucial thing: that we have to take ourselves with us. That is, we won’t just be in Portland, the south of France, Fiji, or the Easter Islands – we’ll be there with ourselves, imprisoned in our own bodies and minds, most of us with the emotional quotient somewhere between a cactus and a wombat.

For example, a single sulk can destroy the beneficial effects of the experience of a National Park. Or ruin the entire week in Paris over an argument why one can’t visit four art galleries in one day. Or the frustration over who had forgotten the key in the room. For no matter how beautiful the hotel room and setting is, we might as well have stayed home and ranted.  How quickly the advantages of civilization are wiped out by a tantrum.

By the way, before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.  We become present to ourselves in the absence of something we need. But at home, we may not actually be who we truly are. Travelling may soon reveal that we actually aren’t really as patient, tolerant or open-minded as we thought we were, and that we need certain accruements before we are comfortable or even happy.  Travelling can be a call to marry the outer journey with what we require for our inner journey.

Alice Walker says that sometimes you have to go to places that really scare you, to see clearer, to think about who you really are and what you really believe. For example, nature has the power in unobtrusive ways, to act as inspirations to certain virtues that need to be honed, virtues that benefit our souls. This kind of attention – with your hands, heart and feet might just be a thing worthy of your time. A desert to feel small and realize that the incidents of our lives are not terribly important in the big scheme of things.

(What this picture doesn’t show you is that it was approximately the same temperature as it would be if we’d been sitting on the sun. Except it was hotter.) Redwoods can inspire dignity.

A lake for calmness.

Oceans for perspective and expansiveness.

Mountains for persistence.

Rocks for anchoring and grounding.

To relive beauty in a field of dalias.

Pine trees for resiliency.

Although there is courage in travelling the world, it is also daring to sit at home with one’s thoughts for a while, risking encounters with certain anxiety-inducing or melancholy, and asking highly necessary questions like – do worker bees have sex? Maybe at the end of the day, the anticipation of travel may have turned out to be the best part.

The real voyage of discovery consists not is seeing new lands, but seeing with new eyes.                                                                              – Marcel Proust

Soon it would be August. More and more I was feeling that my city was becoming too small. Or what may be more accurate – I was becoming too small. Leaves would soon be changing to russets and golds, the temperature would be dropping. I wanted to prolong summer. It was a good and necessary time for me to leave – to let go of the out-lived. I knew no better way than time and distance. Yes, you have to be happy in your own kitchen, but there are also times when it is also good to get out of the kitchen, especially when there’s nothing for dinner. In truth, I needed to work on my faith. But more importantly, my ego needed to go for a drive. From significance to not.

Makes “Me Wanna Roll My Windows Down”

The world is a big place and there were miles of open road untrodden. So with a wholehearted willingness to inhabit my own inner contradictions, I choose roads leading me to better than inclement weather, living where there’s an actual threat of losing fingers while shovelling two feet of snow off a sidewalk.

Along with packing a floppy hat, eye-mask and three pairs of olive green socks, there was one one rather awkward item which I would have preferred to leave behind (or perhaps lose along the way) – myself. No matter how far and how fast we go, it stubbornly remains our constant companion.

But as I severely reminded myself, a defeat is better than nothing at all, as you can’t know or understand anything without experiencing it. 

An end always creates a new beginning – and any action has a reaction. These are an indisputable laws. 

Things will be here when I return, but I hope to see them with new eyes. At least that’s what Proust hoped. 

We need courage to make ourselves voluntarily homeless. Sometimes it is impossible to still the insistent voice inside, the voice that reminds us that our time on this earth is short. 

Or maybe, though it may break our heart to admit it, we may feel we are not deeply or correctly loved, slowly despairing that our partner will ever appreciate that it is not appropriate to eat sauced asparagus with your fingers.

I mean, we do need to uphold the values that we want to prevail in our inner sanctum.

Like Odysseus longing for Ithaka, we may need to leave until the place we live in, is once again able to actively honour what home should always have been.

Even at the sharpest edge of things, there are wings.

So I’m off – in search of sanctuaries in my monastery on wheels, urging me towards detachment. I knew they wouldn’t be hard to find heading towards an ocean with the certitude of craggy mountains and lush forests, rushing rivers and waterfalls, caves and womb-dark grottos.

Solitude is not difficult. I relished it. I desired it. I required it. The point is I was alone and I wanted it this way. One is not required to speak to a soul, until you need to order a tall extra hot cappuccino to go.

I know, I’m the envy of least two of my friends.

By the way, If you are interested in exactly where I am going, do not phone my cell or my enemies will be alerted. Instead head to your nearest bus stop. There will be a man reading the Calgary Sun and wearing a purple hat. Ask him for a glass of juice. If he responds with, “Yes, it is a sunny day”, he is my associate and will give you a sealedI know, I’m the envy of least two of my friends.envelope containing the exact location of my destination. If he is not there, or does not respond with that – run.

Julia Cameron writes, “An artist must have downtime, time to do nothing. Defending our right to such time take courage, conviction and resiliency. Such time, space, and quiet will strike our family and friends as a withdrawal from them. It is. For an artist, withdrawal is necessary. Without it, an artist is vexed, angry, out of sorts. If such deprivation continues, our artist become sullen, depressed, hostile…An artist requires the upkeep of creative solitude. An artist requires the healing of time alone.”

Ah, that would explain many of my moods. It’s always reassuring to cite someone famous that can exalt crabbiness in 12 pt. Garamond.

Someone once gave me a Chance Monopoly card that reads, “Get out of Drama Free.” I keep this near.

I could also point a finger at Jesus. He seemed to be able to pull off this goodness thing. For example, He took buckets of water from people who lived in the desert and turned them into wine. I guess it seemed like a pretty good idea until everyone woke up in the morning. 

Happy trails.

A few years ago, when we were still using carved turnips as a form of monetary exchange, I left Edmonton for Calgary, lured by the liberal arts education promise of being taught how to live.

I mean, it’s really all I dreamed about.

As the reality soon fell short of that promise, I began keeping my own record of what I was seeing and experiencing in the classroom of life, mapping this academically unaddressed terra incognito of being with the utmost concentration.

But as my intellectual, creative, and sommelier development began to unfurl, I realized that there was a distinct and important lack in my new life – I was not ever going to be offered my own Netflix series showcasing my inner Marie Kondo multipotentialite. But then again, lolling on the sofa is perhaps not the optimal moment of which to derive a true picture of reality, given my mind wanders like Jews in the desert.

So two days ago, with encouragement from pretty well no one, I thought that since I seemingly have a captive and semi-loyal cyber audience, I would offer up my vast and varied thoughts to you, my unsuspecting readers.

I had no idea that this would animate me with a new sense of purpose.

This would now become both my mission and something to do for a couple of dull Saturday nights. I also hoped this would be of great historical importance. To whom, I’m not sure.

Now there are some salient core principles involved when undertaking such a fundamental endeavor.    Number 1: Ours is a culture that measure our worth by our efficiency, our relatives, and our ability to only have 2 sets of sheets per bed.  Anne Dillard said something like – “How we spend our afternoons is how we spend our lives.” And some of our afternoons are spent trying to fold fitted sheets properly. Note: It can’t be done.

Number 2: There are those who have no instinct for discarding.

We live in a culture where one of the greatest social disgraces is not having enough stuff, so we often form our “opinions” based on the number of ‘Likes’we get from our Facebook posts, or the mutterings of the person in front of us in the coffee shop line-up, without investing the time and thought to come up with our own true feelings.

Yes, I’ve heard all the excuses: Your great aunt thrice-removed gave it to you, your children will need it if they ever deem to move out, you might lose the other four exact same items, it was made for you in summer camp, it will fit when you lose weight, etc, etc, etc.

It’s time to cultivate your right for negative capability. Just say, “No”, and take your God-given poetic license to just move it out.

I mean, once you start overachieving, people expect things from you.

Number 3: Expect anything tasteful to take a long time. It’s hard to capture something so fundamental, yet so impatiently overlooked, as organizing a closet, yet the myth of the harmonious closet is not a myth. Some might call it the source of our suffering. Thus our present definition of success needs redefining. For example: 1. Is the closet thinned out and clothes colour-blocked? Are there matching hangers? Are there items in there that look like you might send figs in? (I’m not always sarcastic. Sometimes I’m sleeping.)  2.  Do you so love everything in it that it almost blows your socks off?

3.  How are the shelves? Is the floor clear of encumbrances?

4. This one is easy. Does it remind you of sitting in a Ralph Lauren showroom? Or does it look my housekeeping – there appears to have been a struggle.

5.  And the last one. Are items grouped together: skirts together, shirts together, and elastic-waist pants together?

Number 4: Presence is far more intimate and rewarding than productivity. Which is why some of my clients want to declutter by giving most of their clutter to me.

They would later say that this was to support their mission, but to me, it seemed like a total waste of an solution.

I can’t make everyone happy, I’m not a plane ticket.

But wait, I’m not finished. Although this blog may now be plummeting like a grouse full of birdshot. There have been times where I walked in off the street and said, “‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry! I seem to be in somebody’s basement!” The inside of the house looked like the work of a miniaturist beaver. A heap of random objects – the raw core of their life. Sometimes it’s all I can do not to run shrieking from the house. And the world starts to divide. There would be all sorts of wild and wonderful things with nary a lacuna: towers of discarded books, lamps wth shades removed, piles of old magazines bound in tormented seclusion, a chair with one arm, shopping bags of bags placed precariously close to a space heater, brown street signs, bad botanical prints, luxurious collection of paper clips, an unopened case of barbecue banana chips, attachments for three vacuums they no longer owned, takeout containers, and things old before they had any right to be. (I have not hesitated to utilize selected facts, while warping personalities and events for my own needs). You can drum up an opinion later.

So I have morosely accepted the premature demise of my nonexistent TV series and content myself with doing the moral support bit along with a pronounced case of logorrhoea pointing out the obvious, while trying not to think of the millions I would have made. 

Besides, I like to play to a packed house.

I recently became a proud member of the Do Nothing Club. Well, maybe not so recently. Like not during the past two centuries. Nevertheless, I am now enrolled, certified, and valiantly practicing. And trust me, in our history of Puritanism, Patriarchy and Pinterest, this is not as easy as one might think.

Of course, this isn’t an actual club. I’m an closet introvert and don’t join or start, or even talk about clubs, but I really felt the need to pass on this information in case you had time to do nothing.   Most people don’t understand the importance of doing nothing. They assume that doing nothing means doing nothing all the time or thinly disguised as procrastination and laziness, but in truth, it is one of the best things anyone can do for oneself – and the world – because doing nothing gives us the energy to do something.

DOING NOTHING IS AN ACTION. Don’t know why I had to say that so loud.

It takes time to do nothing. I am guessing that for most of your lives you have been running at an unsustainable pace, multi-tasking your way through the day, enjoying or being present for very little of it. When exactly did those tulips come out last year, you do remember the moment your child took their first step, or when Facebook changed your status to “single”.

We are filled with uncertainty all day long, and that drives us to try to do more, to get control of everything, to cram more into our lives, to stay addicted to technology and distraction.

For the most part society measures our worth by what we accomplish. Daydraming is seen as a sign of weakness, a habit to be eradicated. I garner, most CEO’s would not be impressed if we gazed out of our window for half an hour at work.

Over the years, I too, have been known to rearrange all my books by colour, lift weights, and make a painstaking ascent over a Himalayan mountain, although not often all at once.

We are not assaulted by our social media hamster wheel of constant, incessant information that has now become de rigueur, our devices exposing us to a barrage of colliding and clamouring messages; a world of pop-up notifications, LinkedIn requests, 24/7 Facebook “news” feed, tinging emails, Twitter alerts, Snapchat (the fastest way to share a moment), mule feed advertisements, and the counterfeit crowns that come in the form of reposts, retweets and “likes”.

We have developed a Pavlovian response to this New Age torture device –  two people at dinner having separate dates with their iPhones, finding tweets from strangers more interesting than the person sitting across the table. Or worse, a game of Candy Crush. 

And can’t we just have one meal in a restaurant without taking a picture of it?

I cannot begin to list all the ways that this is not okay. Our attention span has dwindled to all of 29.8 seconds. 

It may not seem that way to you now, but there is an outside chance you will not live forever. Do you want your children to remember you as some old dude who was completely disengaged because we couldn’t stop staring at our phone?Remember, we all have an expiration date.

So put your phone down and really look at the person in front of you. Do something crazy, like have a conversation.

If you want to feel out of place in a public setting these days, just start staring off into space or watching people as they walk by. Do it long enough and someone is liable to walk up and ask you if you’re feeling OK.

Now I do more nothing. Not all nothing, but more nothing.

At the beginning, my family almost staged an intervention when they found me aimlessly staring at clouds possibly thinking about learning to knit Icelandic earflap hats. But they got used to it, especially when they each received a hat for Christmas.   It may also be because my cell phone had been tragically killed in a drinking accident the week before.

So how do you practice the art of doing nothing.

1. Stop saying, “I’m busy”, like it’s a badge of honour.

2. Put a tiny block of “do nothing” on your calendar every day. You don’t have to determine how you’ll spend your do nothing time in advance, in fact, that’s the point.  “Slow drip” efforts applied consistently over time are the real game changer here. Dive into the lush, deep forest of idleness. Watch how clouds break up. Listen to falling rain. Ponder your inherited tea cup collection.

3. Throw guilt to the wind. You aren’t choosing to do nothing because you are lazy, but because it’s essential to your health and happiness. You are choosing to do nothing because you are not a robot and because you’ve done enough already.

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.                                           – Oscar Wilde

4. Recognize the difference between nothing and numbing. Embrace Dolce far Niente, “the sweetnesss of doing nothing”, what Italians, for one, have done for centuries.

This does not mean being lazy. It is the pleasure one gets from being idle; the ability to completely enjoy and savour a moment. For Italians this concept is a part of their every day life; spending time with friends at a café, sipping wine at sunset, talking a stroll around the moonlit piazza. Italians make it an art form.

Have people over. Real hospitality doesn’t involve waiting until you finally buy a new couch, remodel the bathroom or have matching silverware, although I know a great place to buy some.

3. Do the math. If you are thinking, I don’t have time to do nothing, remind yourself that you’ll spend less time doing other things if you approach them with ease and clarity. You can’t do that when you are worn out. Good work doesn’t come from someone who is overworked.

Leave the dinner dishes. You don’t have to clean the kitchen the second you stop eating. Instead, go for a walk around the neighbourhood. The dishes aren’t going anywhere.

So this Sunday, wake up with a new mindset, the mindset of Italians. Enjoy the silence, stay in bed a little longer, eat chocolate Easter eggs, read poetry, have sex with your partner, stare at the ceiling, breathe in fresh air, organize your socks. Just be.

Hello, my name is Karyn, and I am an introvert. Many of you may not know this, especially if you don’t get out much, but the third week in March is National Introverts Week. I suppose I am now expected to get out of my jammies, turn off Netflix, wrap up the leftover pizza, drain the last of the cheap wine, and get out there to celebrate. Yes, it will be another draining week.

Most introverts prefer dogs over people, mainly because dogs don’t judge you for not going to a private school, never talk politics, and don’t expect you to take shots with them.

Introverts also prefer more solitary pursuits, like yoga. As for me, I have my own version of downward dog, where I curl up on my bed…okay, it’s a nap. Known to roll our eyes a lot, we introverts also prefer conferences where everyone stays home, meetings that last less than six hours, and we don’t need 317 birthday congratulations on our Facebook page. In fact, most of us probably don’t even have a Facebook page.

Unfortunately our culture is one that favours the extrovert; the gregarious, the enthusiastic, the sociable –  keeping Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People perennially in print.

Cause leave an extrovert alone for a minute and they immediately reach for their cell phone.

President Calvin Coolidge is supposed to have said, “Don’t you know that four-fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still?”, probably paraphrasing French philosopher Blaise Pascal who said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from the inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Coolidge is also purported to have said, “If you don’t say anything, you won’t be called on to repeat it.” Sublime.

Interesting enough, with the bombardment of technology over the past few years, introversion seems to have become not only justified, but flattering; excusing passivity, anxiety, and simple laziness regarding communal life.  Wanting to be alone is healthy, but we have to be careful that we don’t use excuses to cover selfishness. With this deluge of social media, it’s now easier than ever to avoid human interaction. We send a disingenuous email instead of having a face-to-face meeting, we turn down a dinner invitation via text that we wouldn’t have had the gumption to decline over the phone, we post pictures of decorated cakes when we could be having coffee with someone. It’s becoming socially acceptable, even preferable. When we choose to stay in instead of going out, we get less and less social practice, our communication skills declining to where the mode of conversation is a monologue. We commune with little depth, clarity or reflection, forming opinions by the face our pugilistic table mate makes or the mutterings of the person with the IQ of a potted plant siting next to us, without investing the time to come up with our own thoughts and feelings.And don’t forget about the small army of glowing smartphones at dinner tables, in restaurants and bedrooms, at cash registers and airport line-ups – people hunched over their devices, heads bent, looking like a congregation of mourners…mistaken as presence and attention to others.  And don’t forget about the small army of glowing smartphones at dinner tables, in restaurants and bedrooms, at cash registers and airport line-ups – people hunched over their devices, heads bent, looking like a congregation of mourners…mistaken as presence and attention to others.  Yes, I admit to like curling up with a thick book and a hot cup of coffee. I use the book as a coaster for the coffee and browse the internet on my laptop while simultaneously texting my friends and flipping between channels on TV. What were talking about again? So whether an introvert or a wannabe, it’s not an understatement to say thathome is a bedrock to well-being. A home is more than a place, it’s a feeling and a state of mind, a vessel of desire.  We want our home to be a sanctuary, sustaining and fostering recuperation from outside stresses.

The term sanctuary means different things to different people, which is why it’s about creating vignettes and different zones to serve whatever we need and want out of our home. Decorating our home based on our personality will give a harmonized and balanced feeling that fits our lifestyle, allowing us to live with solace and ease.

There are a myriad ways to achieve this hygge comfort: Use neutrals or multiple textures of the same colour so the space is warm and layered, but still visually calming. Choose subtle patterns in furnishings and wall coverings. Choose furniture with clean lines and sleek surfaces. Mix organic materials like wood and wool, metal and linen, leather and fur, velvet and wicker. Purchase plush, comfortable seating to cozy up in. Invest in down toss cushions and pillows. Lay down flannel sheets or silk. Drape sumptuous throws on sofas. Have smaller, more enclosed areas for one (or plus one). Arrange furniture in an intimate grouping.Enjoy the glow of lamplight and control ambient lighting with dimmers for a perfect Zen feeling. Put in thick, lush carpet or area rugs. Design thoughtful vignettes that, even if only you notice, make you happy.Burn beautiful scented candles, like gardenia. Arrange a small bouquet of fresh flowers, a single tropical leaf in a vase, or grow plants.

By the way, if you’re looking for me, text me like normal people.

The weather. My God, it’s everywhere. Does anybody even remember summer? Maybe if we gave up trying to be warm, we’d have a pretty good time. Yes, there are days you just need something to look forward to – and sometimes that’s a doughnut.

About this time of the year we get a little stir crazy, longing for some freshness, some green, some colour, some palm trees, a beach…And yes, I’d rather be in Portugal with my frog prince.

I am not generally not well known for my eagerness to go outside in weather under 80 degrees. Fahrenheit. I mean, once you start overachieving, people expect things from you. So if I’m catching you at home instead of on the beach doing what you are supposed to be doing on the beach – reading my blog – there are things you can do,  besides consuming an inordinate amount of libations, to keep up your spirits, morale and health without buying anything new or going outside. Except for buying some doughnuts.  Did you know that doughnuts make your clothes shrink?  Styling your rooms should look like you just stepped out for Mexican food and will be back to your organized life momentarily. Okay, I can hear the chortling now…you don’t like Mexican food, so that’s not gonna happen.

Now there are some salient core principles involved when undertaking such a fundamental endeavour, as ours is a culture that measures our worth by our efficiency, our relatives, and our ability to make a passable fish taco. Number One: Declutter.  I have written ad nauseum about Kondo-ing, so let’s just move on, shall we? Number Two: Rearrange furniture.  The majority of homes don’t have the furniture in the right spot.  This is so important, as the proper arrangement of furniture can make a huge difference in the way you live in your home.  This is a zero-dollar way to make everything you already own feel almost brand new.  I have long lost track of the number of times staging clients have said, “I wish I would have known about you when I first moved in. I could have lived like this all this time.”

Would a piece in the living room work better in the main bedroom?  Number Three: Shop in your own home. Look at all your possessions in a new light. Or use the precious for everyday purposes: like a a crystal bowl for makeup brushes or a  porcelain vase for a pencil holder. Channel your inner stylist and experiment with items in oddly appealing ways you might not have considered before.

Number Four: Change out accessories from one room to another – bedroom cushions to your sofa, the living room table lamp to your bedside table, the vases in the family room bookcase to the kitchen shelf.

Number Five: Green it up. For an interesting and up-cycle way to incorporate greenery, use old silver urns or trophies as planters.

Buy carnations, the iceberg lettuce of the floral world, in great quantities and with abandon. Like icebergs, they last a long time. They come in a multitude of colours, are available all the time everywhere, and they’re inexpensive. Sensitive Styling Secret: Don’t mix the colours. And ditch those ordinary ferns that always seem to be attached in the package. Bring a little bit of paradise into a room with a large tropical leaf, like a monstera or philodendron, dropped in a tall clear container.  A fresh leaf will last for weeks. Number Six: Display everyday items as art.  Dig out what you thought were only utilitarian items and use them.

So maybe after all this, you won’t necessarily get Kondo-joy, but maybe find something you didn’t even know you needed: a sense of achievement.   So while you take down the last of those pea green sheers from your windows, I’m off to make a “Live Laugh Love” sign out of an old plank and 500 rusty nails.

So…last week we talked about weird phobias. Well, I mentioned one of them in a sentence. And I have been thinking about them ever since and I found one I would really like to talk about – arachibutyrophobia: the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your… Wait, that’s not the one. It’s ataxophobia. Ataxophobia: the fear of disorder or untidiness.  Well, I’m close.

It reminded me of my first staging job back in 1902, which actually turned out to be a de-cluttering job lasting six months as the client could only emotionally handle working two mornings a week – a job more akin to the ascent over the Annapurna. Her house was hopelessly chaotic. Doors wouldn’t fully open as they struck Mount Fuji-sized piles of stuff. There was an oddly appealing collection of framed cross-stitch samplers hanging on the wall along with pictures of possibly dead family members, boxes of journals that went back to when she was seven, ten years of mismatched socks, and an extremely ugly and kitschy collection of unmentionable wearables, shapes and straps in places you’ve never seen (and I’m assuming here), mostly because her chest development plateaued shortly after it started. It was a wasteland of shrapnel. Stuff had glaciered onto the back deck – and the garage stored stuff, not cars. I also knew how much she had paid for toilet paper since 1970, because the receipts were in a shoebox – among many, many other shoeboxes.

She dreamt of a finely curated house, an expanse of empty shelves – and her, all dressed in white.

“My dream is to organize the world.”

“You must begin by discarding.”

Now if you are one camera crew away from being a hoarder, or just want a happier, tidier life, the kawaii guru says that the first step is to put everything in a pile. I know – you’re way ahead of me. Then you ask yourself, “Does this item represent the other 27 mismatched reindeer mugs (for example) in my cupboards?”  Thirdly, you hold each item and ask if it brings you joy. If it doesn’t, release it. (Kneeling optional. Hail and Farewell not optional.)…I don’t know, maybe 17 pairs of pilled, black leggings really do spark joy. Cause I really don’t know you that well. Note: If other issues crop up as you are setting items free, consider tackling those with a therapist. Besides, if you throw out everything that has little purpose, you might find yourself out on the street waiting for the trash collector.  Hmmm…would it be crude to only hang around people that brought me joy?  Or that when you hold a bad boyfriend in your hand, realize he no longer sparks joy and dispose accordingly. Fourth. Only keep 30 books.  WHAT??

Fifth.  Own “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing”, like the 3 million other people on this earth. Unless they have discarded it because it didn’t bring them joy.   Now I think de-cluttering is mostly just plain horse sense. Here is the Kon-Karyn Method: If it’s messy, clean it up. Redirect stuff that you don’t need or use and all expired gum. Keep things if you really like them, especially interesting sugar packets from German cafes. “I might need it Someday” doesn’t cut it. Use up all free makeup samples. Better yet, don’t take them. No one needs a peanut butter making machine. Especially if they are arachibutyrophiacs. There is only 1 way to pronounce “detritus”. Dispose of a body correctly so that it can’t be found again. Things don’t belong in a giant pile on the floor. No one will ever need a Nokia n95 cable that connects to a fax machine. How can you access your self worth if you can’t point to a particular object that someone gave you and say, “They love me this much!” The easiest way to have a clean house is not to own a house in the first place. Dust. Maybe. “People cannot change their tidying habits without first changing their way of thinking.” Can I get a ‘Hallelu’ here? We are a culture of ‘buying more than we need’, valuing quantity over quality, pressured to buy more and more, believing in the false illusion of happiness through material possessions. And we end up buying into a growing set of storage solutions that ultimately doesn’t resolve the initial problem of “too much”. We need to whittle down our possessions to the essentials, like vegetables and electricity bills. It’s not deciding what items to get rid of, as much as deciding which items to keep – this, against all our natural instinct.   We need to evaluate our choices in a more meaningful way at the outset, not later. You get what you pay for – it’s a valid maxim. If you want something that lasts, wait until you can afford better rather than compromising with a cheap knock-off. No doubt this is not easy and not always practical as “hindsight is 20/20”, therefore we need to accept that some things will be mistakes. If we can confront and control the overwhelming abundance in our lives, and live more consciously with less, it’s hard to go wrong. When we have less, we appreciate more. It really is the altering of values.

But really, the purging approach goes beyond the sift and toss. It really is about appreciating our objects, clothes, furniture, pea green shag carpeting…the things that we love. In the end, stuff and decor need not be expensive, just genuine.

And then again, maybe and sometimes, what we should really do, is take our possessions, hold them in our hands, thank them for all they have given us, and put them right back where they were. 

Even Ghandi said that as long as you derive inner comfort from anything, you should keep it.

Do you think he meant even pink flamingos?

So keep your 31st book. Just don’t let Marie find out.

Period. End of Sentence. In homage to the film winning an Oscar on Sunday night for Best Documentary Short, a film about women in a rural village outside of Delhi leading a revolution against the taboo surrounding menstruation. Watch on Netflix before or after Tidying Up.

Phobias can get pretty strange.Take ‘antidaephobia’ for instance – the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you… Who are these people?

So tell me, what’s with all these WHITE WALLS?

Few would name their favourite colours as white, beige, grey or black, yet often their closets and home are filled with these bland, neutral tones.

In North America, there seems to be a cultural bias against colour, dismissing it as child-like and frivolous – inconsiderate even, maybe even falling into degeneracy, depravity, disorientation, and excess – instead prizing neutral hues as a mark of urbane coolness and rational mature taste.

Scroll through Instagram feeds, flip through interior design magazines, Pinterest uploads…and all you see are interiors filled with white walls. O.K., sometimes they’re grey. And once in a while – greige. When the designers for these rooms are questioned as to how to make white rooms more interesting, they respond by saying that you just need to add some texture and a pop of colour – like a cushion.  I’d give up sarcasm, but that would leave me with interpretive dance as my only means of communication. (There is satisfaction in accurately naming the thing that torments you.)

You probably also now want to know my position on trans fats.

“I’m not afraid of colour, but I’m afraid of the wrong colour.”, say people everywhere.

“What if I get that chartreuse leather sofa I love and hate it in five years? I better go for black.” “What if that shade of red is too much in that room? Beige is safer.” “What if I tile my backsplash in cobalt blue, and it hurts the resale value?”

So afraid of making a mistake, they do nothing. But that in itself could be a mistake.  A lack of colour makes us feel uneasy, without even realizing why. A colourless space affects our mood negatively, our ability to concentrate, our productivity, as well as the inability to remember the name of the heart-shaped island off the coast of Croatia, between Zadar and Pasman. (It’s Love Island.)

Instead of giving into these fears, maybe we should just step back and say, “It’s okay to go a little bit nuts – or to put it in gentler terms, fascinatingly unbalanced – to have fun with this whole thing, and to start injecting some colour into my life.”

Not that some of you don’t already have enough colour in your lives – and I don’t mean the walls and furnishings.  

Our lives aren’t pure and perfect, and our homes don’t have to be either.

Hold out for perfect and you end up holding nothing.

Many believe that working with neutrals is easier than working with colour, that they are less daunting and easier to play with and interchange.

They feel that they must be easy to work with because neutrals dominate nature – no, I don’t think so. I think if you’ve actually read what quantum physics has to say about nature as I have – well, I read an email from someone who’d read it…

Neutrals actually can be more difficult to work with than colour as there are different tones in each neutral – greys, browns, blues, greens, yellows, pinks, purples, etc., and combinations thereof.

So, what rooms or areas are best for experimenting with colour? Dining rooms painted a deep colour, such as claret or aubergine and illuminated by dimmed lighting and candlelight, makes the room feel classier and cosier. Powder bathrooms can be treated as amped up little gems, painted or wallpapered in crisp, energetic colours. The front entry painted in a high-octane hue can be transformed from okay to extraordinary.

So for all you chromophobiacs who are still reticent to take on the challenge of painting a dynamic colour on your wall, purchasing a brightly coloured sofa, or installing a vividly patterned floor, there are always these tried and true ways to bring colour into your life and home. Fresh flowers and plant pots Lamps and lampshades Textiles such as walls hangings, quilts, toss cushions, throws, and area rugs  Artwork, photos and decorative items such as vases and baskets Botanicals and plants Open storage showing off coloured dinnerware A side chair

So what are the top 3 decorating tips I give to someone who is afraid of colour?

1. Snap out of it.
2. Start small – try adding colourful cushions on your sofa and if you are really daring, a throw.
3. Hire a designer.

Our lives aren’t pure and perfect, and our homes don’t have to be either.

Hold out for perfect and you end up holding nothing.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.  Otherwise known as the day of mismanaged expectations and mysterious chocolates that nobody really enjoys.  …the day where everyone has an equal chance to be emotionally disappointed.  Not everybody waits for Valentine’s Day with bated breath. Some of us would rather go into hiding and then emerge out on February 15 to buy up all the discounted chocolate.

Eat what you want, exercise your prerogative, and find a good plastic surgeon who gives frequent flyer miles.  – Miss Piggy

Others of us have more grandiose plans. 1. Have breakfast in bed, preferably with chocolate. 2. Anticipate the delivery of a bouquet of roses. 3. Dinner for two.  4. Regret eating two dinners.

Well, at least my whipping cream has a date.

You are never alone on Valentines’s Day if you have bread and are near a lake.  – Nick Primavera

My friends often accuse me of having an intimacy problem. 

But they don’t really know me. 

It’s not that I dislike people. It’s just that I feel better when they aren’t around.

Then again, one of the greatest privileges of being on one’s own is the flattering illusion that one is, in truth, really quite an easy person to live with.

Yes, I think I’m the one.

Well, if you don’t have a sweetheart to consider, you might as well use Valentine’s Day as an excuse to buy something nice for yourself that’s not a quart of ice cream.

If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?  – Lily Tomlin

It’s no secret that we humans are hardwired for connection, but I think that men are more romantic than women.

For what woman can afford to be romantic, when they know that one day they will probably have to perfect the Lamaze method?

And not only for childbirth.

Love is taking time for yourself, your special people, and of course and ultimately why I write these commodious leitmotifs – for your home.

Making a home in this world is a function of making time to love.

Making time is taking time and giving ‘hyggelite’attention to being a good friend, spouse, daughter, brother – to remember your elderly neighbour with her meowing stray cat, to any that ask for help, and to any of your plants that have names.

Why not show up for even one like you wish someone would show up if it were you? We need to show up for each other. And water our plants.

We have such a lax regard for time, a careless disdain of fate. We take so much for granted, thinking we have all the time in the world, but maybe that last time is the last time we will get to see someone. 

Say “I love you!” while you can.

Speaking like a Hallmark card, the only real gift you can give is a bit of your heart. Caring makes for a stronger heart, for a love of a life worth living.

One can never know anyone as completely as they want. But that’s okay, love is better. The experience against which everything else is measured. 

Pablo Piccasso or Shakespeare or Reece Witherspoon, depending on what social media platform you follow, wisely said that the purpose of your life is to find your gift — and then give it away. 

Speaking of giving, nothing says romance more than a book on parenting. 

By the way, I’m available anytime if you would like to talk – but not now, I want to be alone. I’m going to put on my pyjamas now because I’ve been out of them for over three hours, and I’m getting a little anxious.    Here’s to a love-ly Valentine’s Day.  But no pressure. Unless, of course, that’s what you want. I mean, we can see how it goes… This got awkward. Sorry.