Interior decoration: reality show in a retirement home

 

 I confess a slight obsession with property shows. (Question to myself: can any “obsession” be slight?) The Property Brothers, Love It or List It, International House Hunting, or anything to do with tiny houses—these fascinate me. Especially tiny houses. I dream of decorating one and then living in it. But reality tells me that if I find it challenging to manage our own two-room apartment of almost 600 square feet, a 300 square foot tiny house would do me in.

Anyway, one can dream.

If I had another life, I think I might have been an architect or an interior designer. I arrange rooms and decorate walls in my notebook. In my real apartment, I love picking things up and then putting them down in more pleasing places. I search to find just the right picture for that wall over the couch. I look forward to the day we can change out our old carpeting for some newer lovely flooring.

Right now, the retirement home is undergoing major changes to its interior design. It’s more about upgrading, easy maintenance, and safety than it is about beauty. The décor of the downstairs lobby has proved controversial. The carpet has been replaced with vinyl flooring, synthetic stuff made to look like wood. It’s water- and scratch proof, plus easy to clean. That’s practical. The walls that once served as a gallery for local artists now have permanent decorative art, with only one real picture by a real artist. The furniture is tastefully arranged to invite conversations. The administration tells us that all this is more attractive to potential residents. The Marketing Department had a large say in the design.

But when I sit in one of those tasteful chairs, why do I expect a nurse to enter and tell me the doctor will see me now?

Practicality and safety have replaced the old cozy hominess. I feel sad about it.

This week they’re redoing the floor on the 5^th floor hall. That’s where we live. As I sit here writing this, I can hear a machine just outside the bedroom wall. Today they’re tearing up the old carpeting, not only in the hall but also in our community lounge. We can come and go only when they aren’t working outside our door.

Hal thinks the old carpet has been here since the establishment’s foundation in 1962. Can that be? That would make it over 70 years old. That hardly seems possible, but there’s no doubt it’s old. So, scrape, scrape, scrape. Then the next two days will feature washing, glueing, and laying, you guessed it, vinyl flooring. It will probably look nice.

We residents of the 5^th floor family are especially concerned about how the lounge, our community living-room, will look. The old carpet was maroon with old-fashioned rose bouquets scattered over it, something from another century that I would never buy for my own living room. Even so, I’d grown used to it. It gave the whole room a warm cozy feel. Most of the furniture we found downstairs in the resale store. It was eclectic and comfortable, like a real living room that a real family would enjoy. Grandma could pleasantly fit in the corner chair.

Since so many of us are grandmas or grandpas, it worked for us. We used our lounge for community meetings, private conversations, a place to entertain guests, or somewhere to sit quietly and read a book. The puzzle table by the sliding glass doors was always occupied. We’re hoping the redecorated room will invite the same kinds of activities. But we’re all a bit nervous it won’t turn out like that.

(I’ll give a report in a couple of weeks. I hope I can eat my words. Yum yum.)

Of course our retirement home needs to be maintained and updated. The interior decoration needs to comply with government codes for safety. This is all for our benefit. So then why is it so hard to accept these kinds of changes? I don’t believe the myth that all old people resist change. That’s not so, as some of my more adventurous friends have convinced me. Maybe it’s that some changes are hard for some people, no matter their age.

Can the new (safe and practical) and the old (cozy and homelike) merge? Wait and see in a future episode of this somewhat exciting reality show. Property Brothers, move over!

 

[PS: The new book is out!]

A change of pace and a new book

 I have two announcements. 1) As part of my endeavor to simplify my life and lighten the load, I have decided to post to this blog every other week. I’ve been posting weekly for the last four years. I do it with a sense of ministry and joy, and I’m learning as I go. My purpose has been to explore ways of aging with courage and humor, and exploration is the right word. I’m finding the path even as I walk it. And I’ve been doing it with you. That will continue. I hope you’ll stick with me.

By the way, I invite you to check out my website, if you haven’t already (nancyjthomas.com). You can go directly to my blogs from there. The advantage is that it’s easier to comment if you should wish to. I invite comments and would love to have conversations around the subject of each blog. Think about it.

2) This is the exciting announcement. I have a new poetry book coming out later this year. It’s called Before Our Very Eyes: Poems of the Incarnation. The poems center on the life, work, and words of Jesus. I’ve been working on some of them for years. Others are new.

Several years ago, I took on the challenge of meditating, praying, and writing poetry through all the books of the Bible. It hasn’t been an academic exercise and I certainly haven’t had publication in mind. It’s a devotional practice, a form of prayer.

Let me quote from the introduction to the book to give you some of its flavor:

This book of poems begins with a brief prophetic prologue from Isaiah, then covers the words and experiences of Jesus in the four Gospels and the first chapter of Acts. A short epilogue ends in Revelation. . . .

Essentially, the poems are my conversations with God based on Scripture. God graciously give me permission to say anything, get mad with him at times, ask any questions, take him to task, worship him, be amazed. Nothing offends. God can take it. Often the poem ends with an unanswered question and that’s OK. I can wait. We have a back-and-forth relationship. In addition, this way of reading, praying, and writing through the Bible is tremendous fun. . . .

As I ponder the whole story of Jesus, from the Old Testament prophecies, through his time in our neighborhood, and on to end of the story (and its real beginning), I am amazed and blessed. . . . I pray you will experience the same.

Right now I have the galley proofs in hand. That means the publisher (Wipf & Stock) has already type-set the book. I now get to do one last proofreading and then it’s ready to print.

Previously, before sending the completed manuscript to the publisher, I had a professional proofreader meticulously go over it. My friend, Susan Fawver, did the job beautifully, so my task now is not so hard. Nonetheless I’m finding some things in the type-setting to correct. There’s always a chance a typo will sneak in. So I’m reading it slowly out loud, not for the content, but for the nitty-gritty small stuff—consistency, matching the titles in the book to the titles in the table of contents, checking page numbers, re-reading all the Bible references, and so on. It’s hard work, but I’m motivated knowing that the end is in sight and I’ll be able to share the book with the world. With you.

In many ways, the whole process—from the conception of the idea, experiencing the initial excitement, then on to the hard labor—is like giving birth. At this point I’m anxious for the whole thing to be over. I can’t wait to introduce my new child to you.