Home

by Jenna P

For five and a half years, the Brooklyn apartment I called HOME was really more of a container to keep my stuff. It was a place where I cooked food that fueled me, slept, hosted dinner parties and cookie baking, grew into my relationship and my marriage, but mostly, it was an expensive storage unit. I didn’t hang curtains for the first three years that we lived there because I couldn’t decide on a color. I just couldn’t commit.

In March, 2020, when it became clear that the sh*thole apartment that I paid a rent considered ridiculous in other cities but below the market value in Park Slope for was about to become the only place to create and exist, I realized that it needed to transform into a source of inspiration. It needed to go from functional utility closet to HOME. I couldn’t look around and see a mess, see junky mismatched, hand me down furniture covered in piles of clothes or a cluttered, unorganized bookshelf. I needed to look around and see joy, calm, purpose, structure so that I could feel more like an artist.

So, thanks to Marie Kondo, I reconsidered where I put things and why. I took Simon Sinek’s concept of “why” and “so that” and applied it to bureau placement and the framed photos lining the hallway. I made my apartment make more structural sense. The countertops became empty, clean, and the drawers neatly packed and put away.

We painted the walls. We painted them bold blues and energetic greens. I created a travel wall, dedicated to pictures of sunsets from cities we had traveled to and beaches we had seen. I put this wall on the opposite side of our bed so that I could fall asleep every night inspired by the beauty of the planet and the incredible opportunities I had to see it. I reorganized the bookshelf. If the prominent thought leaders who I admired and respected were front and center, perhaps I’d have more answers to the complex questions of my brilliant clients.

What does it say about me that it took a global pandemic to finally pause to consider my surroundings? What does it say about the actor’s lifestyle that we’re always in search of new homes? That we identify with multiple homes? That people or experiences and dressing rooms become our homes?

Isn’t it interesting to think about audition spaces? Devoid of life, devoid of color, of texture, of nuance, of complexity, of soft pillows or flowing curtains. And yet, a demanded breeding ground for creativity. A place where we’re expected to be inspirational, to find inspiration, to create the conditions within which others can be inspired, on the spot with absolutely nothing around us to help. In the name of creativity, who designed these places?!

At least Ripley was kind enough to gift us inspiration in the form of those ugly mustard curtains.