Home

My mother in law and I visited Taliesen West today. It is the home and architecture school built by Frank Lloyd Wright. We had an amazing tour and I am so glad I experienced it with her. My mother in law is a lovely person who has always maintained an intimate relationship with nature. She just gets it. She snapped tons of photographs of angles and corners and pathways while I jotted down notes the entire time. It was pretty inspiring, so I think you'll be hearing it in my writing for awhile.

The first thing you are told as you enter the buildings is to ask yourself how do the building and I interact? Wright had some pretty specific ideas about how he wanted visitors to move through his homes. He designed the spaces for efficiency and function but also around the emotional experience they evoke.

Environment as it relates to feeling, specifically in the home, is a topic near and dear to my heart too. I don't have the luxury of designing my home from scratch, so I can't literally direct the traffic flow like Wright did, but I do have an idea about what I want visitors to feel when they are in my space. I also feel a strong sense of connection between my life and my home and the spiritual connection between a person and a space.

Each of the homes we have owned (we're on number six now) has had a special purpose in our lives. Our first home was about building a foundation and learning to work together. We bought it just after getting married and renovated most of it ourselves. Our second home, a historic condo, was about freedom. After working so hard on the first house, we needed to be young and fun and hip again. Our third home was about family. We bought it from a couple that had triplets and my daughter was born while we lived there. Our next place was a tiny bungalow, small and safe during a time when we were feeling rocky and shaken. After we got back on our feet, we bought a bigger and more practical house where my son was born. That place was about making adult decisions. In Phoenix, our current home is about being open. It has huge windows overlooking endless blue skies and speaks to the new adventures on our horizon.

All of these places have been a living breathing entity in my life. Though it might seem that six homes at thirty six years old is a bit excessive, I never get tired of making the acquaintance of a new place. I love making new friends.