Written by Eva. From her apartment. Which looks exactly as it always has. She is not redecorating.
The new throw blanket is a design decision. The candles, both of them, different scents, placed with intention, are an atmospheric choice. The fact that the art on the west wall has been rehung at a slightly different height is a calibration. These things have nothing to do with anything that happened last month. We are not discussing last month…
What we are discussing is energy. Spatial energy. The way a room holds you or doesn’t. I have been thinking about this for some time, probably since I read about the Japanese concept of Ma. It’s the art of meaningful negative space… in an Architectural Digest piece that I bookmarked and then returned to many times. The idea is that what you remove matters as much as what you keep.
The Throw Situation
The old throw was fine. It served its function. But fine is a word I use when I am being polite, and I have decided to stop being polite about textiles. Life is short and cashmere is real.
The new one is a shade called Fog. Not gray. Not blue. Fog. I saw it and felt something shift, which is either excellent taste or an emotional response I am not ready to name. Either way, I ordered it. It arrives on Tuesday. Ooo lala, I can’t wait.
If you are also a person who communicates through interior decisions, I have been spending time in the Elle Decor archives lately, specifically their pieces on monochromatic interiors and the case for restraint, and I recommend it entirely. They understand that a room can be both beautiful and completely unbothered. I aspire to this.
The Candle Situation
Two candles. Different rooms. Different purposes.
The one in the living room is vetiver and black pepper. It smells like a woman who has made decisions and does not need to revisit them. The one in the bedroom is something called Hinoki, which is a Japanese cypress and which smells like the kind of quiet you actually have to earn.
I have been paying more attention to scent since reading that olfactory memory, how smell is processed by the brain, is actually linked to the limbic system, which is also where we process emotion. I am not saying the candles are therapy. I am saying they are adjacent to therapy. Wallpaper ran a piece on this opening with the fact that Andy Warhol famously curated his own permanent smell collection, changing his perfume every three months so that with one sniff he could return to a specific time. He called it a neat way to reminisce. I found this extremely useful information.
There is a candle brand called Boy Smells that I have recommended to the group chat twice. Lindsy said it sounded like a warning. This is exactly why she and I are friends.
A Note on the Subject of Thunderstorm
Since I went down this rabbit hole… there is a fragrance brand called Demeter that I encountered this week in a way I am still processing. They make single-note scents. The concept is that each one captures one precise thing… a memory, a moment, an everyday object, and nothing else. They have a fragrance called Thunderstorm. One called Paperback. One called, and I am being completely accurate here, Dirt.
I spent forty-five minutes on their website.
I did not buy Dirt. I am a white orchid woman and I have not changed. But there is something about the idea, that a single note, stripped of everything else, can carry an entire memory that I found unexpectedly moving. It is the Chanel edit applied to scent. Remove everything until only the essential remains.
I bookmarked Thunderstorm.
What I Would Never Call This
Someone… I will not name her, but she drinks mojitos and eats Tex-Mex and tracks things in spreadsheets, asked me in the group chat last week if I was “going through something.”
I sent back a single sentence. She knows what it said.
Here is what I will say publicly: I am not going through something. I am processing something. These are completely different. Going through something implies you are at the mercy of it. Processing implies you have a system. I have a system. The system currently involves spatial realignment, olfactory calibration, and if I am being transparent, which I am doing precisely once, exactly one conversation with Emma over lunch that I will not be transcribing here.
Emma and I have had Friday lunch for six years, which you can read about on her page. She does not give advice. She listens and then says one sentence that costs me nothing and fixes everything. This is a rare skill. I recommend finding someone like her.
On the Subject of Rebranding
There is a rule attributed to Coco Chanel that every person in fashion knows: before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one thing. The idea is that restraint is the final edit. That knowing what to take away is the real skill. I have been thinking about this rule a great deal lately. Not as it applies to jewelry. As it applies to everything else.
People think rebranding is about changing who you are. It is not. It is about editing back to who you actually are. Removing what no longer belongs. Rehung at the correct height.
This is what the apartment is doing right now. And this is, if I am being generous with the metaphor, what I am doing too.
The group chat which you can read about here, has been unusually active this week. Lindsy said something about saying no that I found more useful than I expected. Max sent seventeen messages in eleven minutes and then apologized for sending seventeen messages in eleven minutes. Josie reminded us all that inner peace is not a destination; it is a practice. I sent a photo of the new throw.
They understood immediately. They get me.
A Note on the West Wall
The art is two inches higher. You would not notice it unless you were looking for it. But I know. And it is correct now.
That is all.
If you have ever redecorated instead of dealing with something or bought something beautiful instead of having a feeling, come meet the rest of the girls. One of them is definitely you. Take the quiz and find out.
And if your own emotional palette could use a little recalibration the free Survival Guide is here. Five kits. Five women. All of them dealing with life in the only way that makes sense. It is free. It is funny. It is actually useful.
Xo, Eva