The table

Let me set up the mood with a soothing song “Come sit by my garden “, by Emory Hall, Trevor Hall , now setting also the tone for a longer playlist, a space where I collect further songs that speak to my heart.

You can indulge, on repeat here and connect even deeper with the lyrics.

Come and sit by my garden, Emory Hall

I have recently moved to a new home, that comes by with the name “garden” attached. She is welcoming me everyday with sweetness and she quiets my mind. The moment you read this, I am sure you would imagine a lush fairytale, a terrace, greenery everywhere, trees and their leaves trembling with the winds or rain drops. This is the power of a word indeed. The home does not hold any of these attributes except the colours of nature. The garden here is a reflection of my interior garden, the ways I look at things, the way I incorporate the vibrancy or all elements that move me. The plants are punctuating the space as everlasting friends, as living beings that need care, love, attention, as many beautiful words as we need too. The fairytale is real because I believe in it. No tall banana trees needed to prove it.

I love sitting at the early hours of the day and wait for the sunrise, or the reflection of the sunrise on the portion of the sky visible to in this place. The way I love to move around the house is in silence, allowing only the external lights in, and making sense of all objects in semi-darkness. The way I find my coffee machine, the way I measure the coffee and pour in the filter, the entire morning ballet is reliant on my senses, of what I know to be there, on the objects placed in a specific order that I can master in semi-darkness. No bright awakening of a white light needed.

There is a familiarity in the warm red-wooded floor that brings me back to the home I grew up in, including the fact that is oriented more towards the north. While it receives a beautiful light, it is only basked in sun very short hours at noon and only a specific limited part of a room receives it. I come to chase the sun everyday now, like a puzzle, mostly to get the timing right, if I pay attention enough.

There is a chase so organic that imbues the day with this magic reward that sunlight and warmth brings in. Moreover so, when I know how short the lived reward is.

I do remember well my first week at this new place. Armed with a two page drafts of measurements of the house, that the agents kindly took for me during my viewing, my mind went straight into a spiral and spent good time there searching for what furniture I could match here. Torn between “small flat” videos on youtube, all redesigned by private architect studios and all introducing gorgeous custom joinery ,I was trying to apply that principles and make do with Ikea, or Zara Home online listings. All I wanted was simplicity mixed with surprise colour, heart opening colours. The excitement of all that searching was gradually tamed by now. It has been replaced by yellow post-it’s, the place holders on a wall, to remind me of my own thinking process, the discovery phase really on how I could use the space.Knowing that those yellow stickers could easily be replaced and take a new shape, the room could be reinvented over and over again, without a fait of a drill or fixing anything yet.

All at its own time. One of the notes, on my main entrance doors was reading: “Keep dreaming, but not buying anything yet”. I have kept my promise. Proud! There was a new thrill to start the day for now, when I add furniture pieces to a wish list, when I keep measuring things, keep dreaming.

I have turned my little garden-home into a live brainstorm, a live Figma moodboard, where I map out ideas while I am adapting, while I am in fact using the house to see what comes out of my movements, the way I sit, where do I love to write, where would be easier to work from, how can I sleep better. Aren’t all the design processes encourage us to explore the live discovery?Here I was, turning years of experience in a gradual process, a discovery of self.

Some things were a given as my sofas which now, in relation to the space itself, it is suddenly a huge sofa, perfectly matching one specific wall. It almost looks like measured to perfection. It is not something that came to be from day one, and this set of two modular sofas were the major object that was moved a couple of times around. It became the “playdough” for my playground while ingesting and feeling the space.

I am fascinated by the process and I am fascinated even more so, how solutions develop day by day, with new insights even, more so now when I start creating some space in my mind and distance from the objects of my research, simply because I am on holidays.

The coffee station evolved organically too. While I loved having it in the living room at first, I just realized that I am drinking far too much coffee only by staring at the machines in front of me. The barista was always on call and perhaps getting tired or over-caffeinated. I took a careful glimpse at my small kitchen, measured largely with my eyes the space occupied, and then moved all coffee gear back to the kitchen. I have to walk now 30 steps more or perhaps 80 steps, depends where I work from, and have a chat with that barista. It is something.

The bookshelves looked overwhelmed for a while and placed on a wrong wall that was quite isolating for my books. I brought it back to my living room, next to a floor lamp where I can see my authors and where I can pick a book for inspiration daily. My floor lamp turned into the ever evolving Christmas tree, always inspired by all the cute crafted trees of internet. A lot of unorganised art books, bigger albums are now simply lined up against the floor. My friends declared it a bohemian artist home and they even said it seems pretty organized to them. So, no further fuss here.

Small spaces invite you to create utility and keep the warmth,and for me it seems that I find a place welcoming through its books and art, plates, coffee cups and colours.

The now- huge-for-the-space modular sofa, making up this long divan, is the perfect lounger and lotus sitting for anyone dropping by for a coffee, or a meal, or a chocolate eclaire. Yum

The chase for filling up the walls with wardrobes , or with more bookshelves is taking a break, hibernating before the winter solstice and keeps simmering in the energy of the room.

I came to see the round low coffee table I had for a while as the heart of the operations now. The seats are my meditation cushions, the bottom shelf of the round table holds anything that I do not want to see at once, is more of a de-cluttering space, meaning more books in the process of reading, some oracle cards for fun readings after the coffees, many pens and colours. That lounger is a natural extention to the table and it displays all related to writing, notebooks, brainstorm logs. This is a a world expanded horizontally, instead of vertically. The beauty of a small space is that everything is reachable at one’s arm’s length.

I came to appreciated more and more so that we can live with only a few objects and there is a bigger perspective to tune, by moving the focus from an object onto the very process.The creation of a blueprint, right here, never holding on the same very idea for too long. A blueprint of the process of becoming and changing.

I imagine I walk on clouds anytime I open the windows of my bedroom in the morning since I can now walk on a tatami bed. There is no rigid bed frame, there is a minimal elevation only. Anytime I go to bed, the ceilings seems so tall,as if I enter a shelter. The sequels of living through many typhoons at the old house, in the middle of the jungle, all this summer, are strongly infused still onto my senses.

There are these new insights flowing everyday, only by getting aquainted with a new home. The more I observe the more I remember my grandparents houses. They come with few rules only. All rooms will have a table.

Not all rooms had chairs and in some cases, the table’s function was a wardrobe, a bookshelf, a study table with added storage. If the room had a TV, you might even find another table in the room, as supporting act.

The main living room, literally where all happened, the kitchen in many occasions had even three tables.All with different purpose. If they needed an object to serve a purpose, the answer was “Call a carpenter and ask for a table”.

The tables than rotate their functions and can be active participants in whatever took priority. There was almost always a group of people, doing things together.

Pickles season, kilograms and kilograms of vegetables, carrots, cauliflower , celeriac, bell peppers, cabbage filled up the tables followed then by jars at different stages :washed, lids tested and preselected, then jars filled with the colourful ingredients, trays for placing them in the oven, trays to cool down.

The living-kitchen means that all that comes into the house, groceries, repair work, clothes mending, takes up the stage for a while and disappear , afternoon coffee time means inviting neighbours, some fruits, chocolates and some biscuits.

The table is by far the most dynamic element in the decor of the house in the country side.

This is usually paired with a bed, or a sofa nowadays, depending on the room. In my grandparents days, there was a table or two, in some rooms there were even two beds, depending on how many people would share a room, how many kids and so on.

The other fix element was the ceramic brick stove, in the living-kitchen with a cooking top, in the other rooms, a tall ceramic stove in one corner of the room.

They did have the essentials only, and there was never focus on new clothes for the sake of getting something new. There were most self-made and tailored, and pretty utilitarian.

The round table that I have now connects me to the round tables in my grandparents days where we would eat together, share the dishes and sit on low chairs. The tables would be moved then onto a side wall and let the room breathe and allow people to move around the room for other activities. The round table could be easily taken outdoors, in the courtyard, into a different room if needed, and could become that working station for anything.

Whenever I visited my grandmother, my books, my writing paper and pencils (as I would write letters to my friends daily), and I did have a mini TV at a point in time. Everything was on one table, at the center of the room. Two beds, one stove, maybe one or two more chairs for visitors, aunts and cousins.

All my bookshelves in my own room changed its configurations many times, were designed by me and made to order by a local carpenter. Some of them still exist in the country house, holding some kitchen gear now. Same object made well, repurposed and given more lives that I would ever imagine.

The first ever bookshelf I ordered ages ago to be custom-made was horizontal, hanged tall on the tall, on top of my sofa or behind by study desk. At some moment in time, the table concept has been replaced by a study desk.It did bring me a lot of happiness including to all nieces and students who occupied my room while I was at university in a different city , where surprise surprise, I had another table. My books there were lined up on the bed’s framework. Or on the floor.

I am still trying to understand today, at the new garden-home, if I will ever need a dining table or not, and I cannot fathom one at the moment based on the latest dinners served on meditation cushions.I guess my friends will vote for a dining table at the end, as there is a limitation in lotus-position sitting for too long.

Sitting with a place, feeling a place while going through many changes, is in nice way rewarding without even looking for a reward- it is the peace I was looking for. After months and months of intensity, this newly found place is talking to me in a new language. Wait and see, she whispers. We have everything right here. We do not have to be hyper organized, we do not have to have the ideal storage, we just have to live in the space.

Make room to breathe.

We really do not need much. My happy place is with books, art, on the floor is fine as the key is for me to see it and allowing me to change and swap places following my moods. The role of lighting is still important for me , lamps and lamps rotating, evolving with me and what I might do. Read or study.

While I am drawn by calming colours, I end up with a balance between pops of colours in the carpet or my coffee cups.

The lack of massive blocks of furniture keeps all objects visible .I came to realize that my coffee cups match quite well my carpet. The theme tends to be pink, white, red, greens and some purple. The bedroom has now a blue/green vibe from the Japanese tatami.Minimal and functional objects with pops of colours and vibrancy. If there is a name for this decorating trend, please message me.

We have a table, it is inviting both for my writing and reading and for having cute spontaneous gatherings for coffee or food. It gives me comfort, and introspection.

A home focused on grounding and healing and introspection.

I would like to end this letter and invite you now to a world of carefully chosen words, the life of poems.

One of my favourite activities on a Sunday, or on a random rainy day, on a day calling for introspection is to pull out a book of poems and start reading.Nowadays I practice reading out loud as to hear out my own kind voice in clarity.

In one of these days, I happened to find on instagram a new poet, Len Pennie, reading one of her amazing poems “You are here”. I am sure, it just said all the things I ever felt for a very long time, in this one poem. Something calls us towards finding what resonates with us at the moment we needed most, and Len Pennie was the answer to my prayers that day.

I will quote only a small paragraph here, and I encourage you to go find her performance and listen to her moving reading. You can find her on instagram, under BBC 4 posts. Somehow their links did not work on this platform. He book is called “poyums annaw”. The title of the book means “poems again” or “more poems” in Scots.

Len Pennie at Hay Festival

There isn’t a time scale for how you should heal;

Your bad days are valid; your heartache is real.

But so is the day that your smile will return;

That fire within you continues to burn.

You will overcome this, and continue to thrive,

You are here, you are loved, you are whole,you’re alive.

So long dear friends. Thank you to have the tremendous patience to bear with cadence of writing the letters here for the past months. There has been a lot of motion. I am here now.I am loved.I am whole. I am alive.

Thank you and see you soon.