From the outside looking in…

My mom is a brilliant decorator. She is also way too humble to admit it, despite professionals in the field telling her so. Anyway, my mom has a philosophy that in order to determine how attractive a room is, you must view it from the outside and look in. This is especially true at nighttime, when the correct lighting inside a room can make it look all cozy and magical. I took a look at my bedroom yesterday from our balcony. It is my favourite room in our house (admittedly probably because it has the most furniture!) It has rich, warm colours(reds and golds) and all of my favourite objects in it(mainly various Buddhas and objets d’art from India, photographs from my wedding and of my children etc). From the outside you catch a glimpse of my carpet (a fake Persian in reds and greens), my large golden Buddha on a stand, the old Camphor chest from my aunt and the Indian silk cover that is draped over the edge of my King size bed. It looks beautiful and welcoming from the outside looking in.
I am sure many of you, like me, also like to take a peek into people’s houses. (I seem to remember a post by Louise on this topic). I love looking into the various rooms and getting a taste of people’s lives. There is a house in the complex next to the one where I live, that I always take a look at when driving past. It caught my attention as it has a baby’s nursery upstairs that faces onto the road. I can tell the baby is a girl as it has been done out in pink and white. It looks like it has been decorated with love and care. At one stage there was a compactum up against the full-length window, which I thought was rather dangerous, but now that has been replaced with a pink feeding chair. Sometimes when I drive past, the curtains are closed and I presume the baby is sleeping. Yesterday I commented to Craig their baby sleeps more than ours. He cynically responded, “ No, I bet the mother is in the room now comforting her.” It is amazing how much we can gather about someone or their life by looking in, even if sometimes we make up our own story about them in our heads. I notice the bedroom next to the nursery has a desk in the window and presume the mother is trying to work from home now that she has had a baby. I love to people watch in public places and tend to do the same thing then. If you have ever watched the movie the Wonderboys you will see what I mean as the characters in it do the same thing at a bar, like a game. Getting back to the baby’s room. For some reason I enjoy looking in to that bedroom. Not just to observe the pretty décor, but there is something about getting a glimpse of that mom and baby’s life and their daily routine, similar to mine, that makes me feel connected to her. It makes me feel sort of warm inside. It reminds me of how we are not alone.

Tagged as: baby, Buddha, India, lives