“This is not the right career for you. You are a homebody.”
I heard this a lot when I said I would become an opera singer. It’s true, by the way. I wanted to fight against it. “I love late night parties, fancy dresses, high heels, Champagne. I enjoy singing in front of thousands of people. I like hotels and room service.”
Be careful with your words. They become priorities.
Truth?
I like being asleep at midnight. I prefer jeans and an Old Navy tank top. High heels hurt my entire body. Champagne gives me a hangover. The best song I ever sang was to baby Draper and he didn’t understand one word or even who I was. I love my home. I would rather cook a grilled cheese than eat fois gras.
Since my graduation from MSM in 2006, I have lived in over 50 places. I’ve lived in countless hotel rooms, including one in Italy with bedbugs that scarred my face for about a year.
I have flown from place to place because my career demanded it. Then?
In 2009, I landed in an small village in Switzerland: Uitikon Waldegg. I couldn’t pronounce it, really spell it, or remember it.
Now, people who enter my home or, God bless them, stay here all tell me the same thing. “LA, I don’t get it. I slept like a baby for the first time in years It is so peaceful here.”
Yes, I agree. My home. My nest. I cultivate the peace here. The angel mobile Granddaddy made for me hangs over my front door (though many people, including me, semi bang their heads on it). I have candles, I have some chime things Carol bought me in Austin. I cook, I caretake, I do everything I can to make this a place of relaxation, good food, and love. The bedspread Carol, Momma, and I picked out at Dillards in Dallas is on my bed. There is a mug celebrating Kathrin and Gabriel’s wedding in Komarno, another mug from the time I stayed with Jakey & Curttastic. I am looking at a painting done by Mimi next to a painting done by Wyatt Walter.
And, there is always light. It is never dark.
The only real home I’ve ever had since I left our family home at Peyton in 1993. My peaceful, beautiful, restorative nest.
Lucky was I. So very lucky to have had such a beautiful nest.
2009
The World of Before You 