The Feeling of Home #SOC15 - 3/29

“La vida sería mucho más agradable si uno pudiera llevarse a donde quiera que fuera, los sabores y olores de la casa materna.”

"Life would be much nicer if one could take where ever they went, the tastes and smells of their mother's house."
 - Like Water for Chocolate

     I always like to go to friends' mom's houses and see bits and pieces of my friend in the house.  I really like going into anyone else's house.  It sounds odd, but I just like to see what they've done.  How did they decide to decorate it?  What is their color scheme?  How do they use the space?  I always think it's interesting to see different homes.

     When I first went into Aaron's apartment when we started dating, I remember thinking how fancy and earthy everything looked.  His tables were iron and marble, leather couches and ottomans, dark browns and blacks and grey all over. Even the pictures he had on his walls were things like a black and white picture with trees.  His dishes.  His dishes are brown.  I didn't even know they made brown dishes.
     Now, every Sunday, we go to Aaron's mom's house for dinner.  Going into her home you can definitely see where Aaron gets his taste from.  Almost everything is dark, rich, earth colors.  The walls are brown, except the kitchen where it's a deep burgundy color.  The carpets are brown, the tables are stone and glass and iron.  The furniture is all dark leather, and the decorations are in browns, blacks, and deep, deep, rich earthy colors:  dark greens and reds, like you might see under a dense canopy of trees in a forrest.

Aaron's cabinet space

My cabinet space 

     My apartment, by contrast, looked much like my mom's house.  I have a tropical blue bedspread with lime green and white hibiscus flowers all over; the reverse side is pink, orange, green, blue, and white stripe.  My art is colorful, vibrant, and eclectic.  There are flowers everywhere, colors everywhere, and tons of pillows.  I have fiestaware dishes of all different colors, except black and white, and my pots and pans are all red or blue.  I even have a rainbow collection of chopsticks!  I prefer soft cloth fabric to leather, I hate metal, and I'd take painted wood over metal any day. If you saw my post about my mom's house though, you might get it. I think it's interesting that we carry it with us.

This is basically my whole aesthetic. 

Even my binders at school are bright

My whole life looks like this

     We are currently trying to decide whether or not to buy a house, or continue renting.  I'm kind of slowly leaning more and more towards buying my own house so I can decorate and paint and do the things I want to do.  I've wondered how that will go.  How will we decide what kind of bedspread to get, what kind of art to hang, what kind of dishes to buy?  What will our house smell and taste like? How will we make a new home out of a house?

     My mom told me once, "Home is where your mother is."  She said, after her mom died, she wondered where home would be.  It wasn't El Paso any more.  She would have to make her own.  I am lucky to still have my mom, and she's right.  Even though I've never lived in the house she owns now, and even though I've lived in west Texas for TEN years now, I still say I'm going home when I refer to her house.  How will I make a home?   I will take the smells and the taste and the love of my mother's home, and bring it with me.  Maybe I can make room for a little bit of metal and earth and leather. (That's a big maybe)