It\u2019s here! It\u2019s here!<\/p>\n
The October Pottery Barn catalog\u2026be still my heart. I mean, it might be 105 in the shade outside. But inside, with me and my coffee and my favorite leather club chair (which did NOT come from Pottery Barn) it is nothing but fall bliss. Pumpkins, colored leaves, fragrant warm beverages, crisp evening air, the promise of friends gathering to share a good meal\u2026and that\u2019s just the cover!<\/p>\n
Let me be clear. There is only one thing in the whole of my house that actually came from the Pottery Barn. It is a two-tone green area rug, and my dog has peed on it so many times, it is more like a 4-tone area rug that we try to mostly cover up with furniture (from not the Pottery Barn). I mean, real people can\u2019t shop there.\u00a0Those pages offer a few pages of lovely escape, in the form of decorative perfection.\u00a0As i sip my\u00a0(plain ol) coffee\u00a0from my mug (which matches nothing in my\u00a0kitchen) i remind myself that it is just that\u2013an escape.<\/p>\n
Trouble is, it can get to be an expensive escape. Because, as you emerse yourself in the life of that beautiful, carefully orchestrated catalog, it is easy to lose yourself in this new reality. Suddenly, everything in your house looks shabby, mismatched, and grossly out of style. You quickly start adding up the\u00a0items on the page. What would it cost, you may ask yourself, to recreate this living room? This bathroom? Ok, maybe just this table for thanksgiving dinner?\u00a0Every single time, the answer is roughly 8 million dollars.\u00a0But that\u2019s ok! Because once i have this living room\/bathroom\/ holiday table, i will be HAPPY. I will never want anything else AGAIN, so really, i would be SAVING money!!<\/p>\n
Hold up. This is starting to\u00a0read like pornography.
\nIn many ways, that is just what the Pottery Barn folks are offering. An addictive form of escape that 1)has no bearing on reality 2)would be costly to pursue and 3)must be\u00a0hidden quickly\u00a0when your spouse walks in the room.<\/p>\n
The stuff on the page is not the problem. What concerns me is what those pages do to my sense of gratitude; what those imaginary living spaces do to my\u00a0ability to be rooted in the present, and satisfied with all that i have. I\u2019m speaking for myself here, but I am guessing that many, many people I know\u2013people who, like me, really have all that they could ever want or wish for\u2013suffer from similar routes of escapism. Maybe yours looks more like Cosmo, <\/em>or House Hunters, <\/em>or HOTCars, <\/em>or nordstrom.com, <\/em>or yeah, maybe it looks a little like Playboy. It\u2019s all the same\u2026 it all works to leave us feeling mismatched, not enough, bored\/boring, and utterly poor in soul.<\/p>\n Enough! I am enough. YOU are enough. And our lives, mismatched, unorganized, and bereft of airbrushing as they might be, are ENOUGH.<\/p>\n Ever tried to actually read the wall calendar in one of those hyper-organized work spaces featured in the \u2018home office\u2019 section? I can\u2019t help but notice, those\u00a0fictional\u00a0days are never filled with work, or service to others, or even the day-to-day chore and errand sorts of things\u2026like paying the electric bill or having one\u2019s teeth cleaned. No, those make-believe days are filled with the very essence of party and holiday\u2013\u2018clam bake!\u2019 reads a Saturday in July. \u2018Pick up pies,\u2019 says the third week of November. \u2018Leave for Paris,\u2019 \u2018get dad from airport,\u2019 \u2018buy gift for Jane\u2019s wedding\u2026\u2019 On and on and on\u2026Which leaves me to wonder: when does real life happen? What sorts of meaningful work and human connection take place in those rooms full of picture perfect detail? I mean, you\u2019re designing that perfect house for SOMEthing to happen there, right?<\/p>\n Well, and that\u2019s another thing\u2026 you ever see an actual PERSON in a Pottery Barn catalog? Not on your life. You know why? People make messes. <\/em>People don\u2019t match the carpet. People can be loud and downright unorganized. People cannot be predicted, or charted into the calendar. They cannot always be containd by a place card, and they for darn sure don\u2019t always go by the dress code outlined on the invitation.<\/p>\n There are people in the world who make their living by marketing furniture, home decor, and home office organizing systems. There are also folks who make a living\u00a0via clothing, cosmetics, cosmetic procedures, and body-building equipment. Others make money selling fast cars and\u00a0high-end homes\u2026 At every turn, these folks know how to make the most from <\/em>you, by making the least of <\/em>you. When they have packaged their product well, everything you own\u2013heck, everything you ARE\u2013starts to look shabby by comparison. And really, we can\u2019t blame these folks for selling a gorgeous product. It\u2019s a living.<\/p>\n What we CAN do, is resist the temptation to engage in these forms of chronic escapism; we can recognize\u00a0that which leaves us feeling less than whole, and refuse to try and buy our way to happiness. We can remember that chaos and clutter come in the wake of real live people; people who love us, and fill our (real live actual) houses with joy and goodness. We can give thanks for a quiet moment to flip through a catalog or magazine; and then we can go back to living on our worn sofas, in our comfy shoes, making dinner with our mismatched pots and pans, and celebrating the details\u00a0that add up to our\u00a0perfect-for-us lives. With or without a color chart.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s here! It\u2019s here! The October Pottery Barn catalog\u2026be still my heart. I mean, it might be 105 in the shade outside. But inside, with me and my coffee and my favorite leather club chair (which did NOT come from Pottery Barn) it is nothing but fall bliss. Pumpkins, colored leaves, fragrant warm beverages, crisp […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,56],"tags":[636,725,726,473,9,10,727],"class_list":["post-1573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-desert-life","category-spirituality-in-culture","tag-consumerism","tag-holidays","tag-home-decor","tag-pottery-barn","tag-progressive-christianity","tag-spirituality","tag-thanksgiving"],"yoast_head":"\n