Welcome home

You, like me, are always thinking.

It's as if the wheels in your brain are always turning, thoughts churning. Calm is just the time when you can keep one thought in focus instead of juggling them all. It's not an easy thing to do when you are like us. Almost anything can bump our thoughts from one track to another and another.

To focus, we use tricks we developed early in our lives. I used to trace the pattern in fabrics with my finger, letting my mind follow the path as if I was a part of the threads. From there I learned to draw and would let the lines carry me from thought to thought. Following a path of movement worked too - walking, biking, swimming, climbing - anything that could channel the chaos. Becoming a graphic artist allowed me to make use of the multiple thoughts to solve complex design problems. I can see many options at once and evaluate them. Honestly, I can't help but do that.

There is a dark side too - where the thoughts begin to crash into each other - the pros and cons - and it becomes a web of sticky "what if's." Thrashing only binds me tighter into negative thinking and it is only by being calm and quieting the thoughts can I slip free.

I still sketch to relieve my stress, and one of the things built into my living space are drawers of pens, pencils, pads as well as plans for what I would do to this or that space. Though those sketches, I was able to see the patterns of how to create calm in my home that I could then use to bring calm into my mind.

I took a front yard full of weeds and put a courtyard in it's place. Trees I'd not really noticed before took center stage and I could imagine years into the future how the plants I would plant would grow and bloom. I put a fountain in the middle picked for it's sound as my son and I walked through the statuary lot in the rain - eyes closed - each taking turns leading the other. The height of each wall was planned for optimum privacy but low enough in the front to be welcoming. Gates from salvage completed the look and made the space seem as if it had always been there. And it had... in my mind.

Skylights brought light into the darkest of rooms - as well as fresh breezes and sounds of birds.

More fountains channeled sound into every part of my yard and home. More fountains brought more birds. Then chimes - tuned to work in harmony play their sweet notes as the breeze moves through the graceful oaks. A hot tub, in the garden, in a yard completely enclosed by beautiful redwood fencing encourages me just be calm and warm and watch the trees, birds and listen to water, breeze, chimes.

I made my entire home into a collection of calming spaces. I can go to any part of my home, inside or out to help focus my thoughts and allow me to get "unstuck" from negative thinking - a place of infinite calm and opportunities for singular focus.

My path is leading me East where I will take what I learned here and transform another house, into a calming home.

This home is waiting patiently for you to find it.
It was created for you. You'll recognize that the moment you walk through the gate and hear the trickling of the fountain. Close your eyes, take a deep breath.

Welcome home.