Hello!
A couple months ago I wrote about the lived-in way French women wear clothes. Isabelle Bertolami (‘American Mom in Paris’) posted a reel that advocated using ‘lived-in-ness’ as a way to choose restaurants in Paris (I agree). Last week I wrote about my dislike of wellness optimization culture. Over the weekend I read “The Optimization Sinkhole” about home renovation culture, on Anne Helen Petersen’s Substack newsletter, Culture Study.
I think this is all circling around a theme: optimization and lived-in-ness on opposite ends of a spectrum.
I’m constantly bookmarking old, imperfect, cluttered, un-remodeled homes on Instagram and Pinterest, but also get a deep sense of calm standing in the middle of The Container Store.
I think there’s something necessary in both. Something optimized feels good for your mind. And something lived-in feels good for your soul.
But in so many areas of life—wellness, getting dressed, choosing a restaurant, home renovation, and more, the culture elevates optimization and forgets all about the magic of that lived-in quality.
In her article, Petersen wrote, “We’ve collectively become very good at mistaking the feelings of optimization, organization, and control for fun. Organizing your fridge is not fun. Neither is watching someone do it. It is satisfying, and it is satisfying because it offers a flicker of control amidst the natural and amplified chaos of our lives.”
And trust me, I will be the first one to emphasize how important it is to exert a sense of control over your living environment, for your own mental health. Two things can be true.
I’m not writing to you as someone who has found the balance between the two. When surrounded by beautiful images of optimized homes, I work every day not to judge my own.
As Petersen said, “if you look at your home and feel that it’s broken and needs renovating, you take away the comfort it’s able to give you.” When the scales tip so that the relationship with your house becomes all about fixing (creating systems, organizing, cleaning, renovating, decorating, styling, etc.), you don’t have much time left to enjoy the fruits of your labor (relaxing, shutting off, spending time with your family, hanging out, sharing meals, aimlessly puttering, doing hobbies, having fun!!)
This is famously a (lighthearted) critique leveled at gardeners: they’re so busy pruning, watering, planting, trimming, and spreading mulch that they never sit down, sip a cold lemonade, and take in the oasis they’ve created for themselves.
Plants grow, though. Sofas and coffee tables do not! Besides the basic cleaning, tidying, and restyling to the degree that it gives you pleasure and peace, once your home is decorated, you can more or less leave it alone.
Hot take: I believe all interior photographers should do their magazine shoots at least a year after the work wraps up on the house—not the day after the last contractor walks off the site. And the prop stylists should let more of the stuff of daily life stay put rather than placing everything so perfectly for the photograph.
I get that photographed homes aren’t intended to represent how people really live in houses, but I’m personally much more interested in how people really live in houses than an empty (albeit beautiful) house devoid of life. Houses need life happening between their four walls. The lived-in-ness is the soul of the house.
In so many great novels, houses are important characters. The house is often the name of the work: Wuthering Heights, Howards End, Anne of Green Gables. Downton Abbey! And the plot never revolves around a dream home makeover. The characters just exist in the house and their plot lines unfold: love, betrayal, birth, death, the world changing, money troubles, family secrets, coming of age, and so on, all with the backdrop of the house as a constant, a comfort, a solace.
I love to clean and organize—I really do! But a smooshed, sagging pillow that hasn’t been refluffed also invites you to lean back without worrying about messing something up. Saying this for my own sake as much as anyone else’s.
Life is for living, imperfection is character, rough days / wrinkles / stains / dust / pet hair happen, and that’s what makes the stuff in your house take on more meaning than just something you bought. Furniture that doesn’t perfectly fit in the space because it’s a hand-me-down, scuffs on the wood floor of a rental apartment, and worn corners on a table that came from an estate sale all tell an interesting and unique story.
I’d love to hear your thoughts—let me know in the comments what you think about the optimization-to-lived-in continuum.
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This week’s recs
Reading: A crowdsourced list of clothes people love so much they bought multiples
Inspired by the Princess of Wales’ habit of wearing the same style in multiple colors, Elizabeth Holmes (the author of HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style, not the other one) asked her audience what they buy in multiples. And people. were. so. excited. Elizabeth published a massive spreadsheet of everyone’s responses—340 rows and counting!! I was so inspired to discover what people are so obsessed with that they bought it twice (or more). Mine would be all stuff I’ve written about before: the Sézane Gaspard sweater, Gap High Rise Cheeky Straight Jeans, La Ligne Marina sweater (in cashmere and cotton).
Watching: Jamie Beck’s Instagram stories from Vienna
This is a tricky rec, since stories expire 24 hours after being posted. But Jamie Beck (photographer and author of An American in Provence) and her family are having the most beautiful visit to Vienna, Austria, one of my favorite places I’ve ever had the privilege of going. She has the best taste and I’m traveling vicariously through her this week! For those of you not reading this on May 31st, I feel hopeful that she’ll make a profile highlight—and that her trip will last for a few more days so you can catch her dreamy Austrian adventures.
Listening: Were You Raised by Wolves? podcast
I often forget to recommend things that I’m a regular listener of, since new discoveries are top of mind. But I’ve loved this show for years. Nick and Leah answer listeners’ etiquette questions with wisdom, empathy, and humor. They also educate the audience on issues of modern etiquette from the very niche to things we all encounter.
Making: Alison Roman’s sun-dried tomato pasta salad
Last week I went down quite the rabbit hole on Alison Roman’s YouTube channel. Monday night, my husband and I were walking in the neighborhood around dinner time, and I was struck with the desire to make the most recently posted recipe: a jammy tomato pasta salad. So, we popped into our local grocery, luckily open on Memorial Day, and headed home to cook. I halved the recipe and stirred in a few big handfuls of baby kale just as the sauce finished cooking, but otherwise followed the recipe as written. It took 30 minutes max. We ate it hot for dinner and cold for lunch leftovers the next day, and it was delicious! Will definitely be making again.
Doing: Picnicking!
In lieu of traveling for Memorial Day Weekend, we opted for some long stretches of unstructured home time, something both my husband and I require to recharge our batteries. And to me, picnics are a wonderful use of unstructured time. So we packed a basket on Sunday afternoon and headed for the Boston Public Garden. In the basket: a blackberry cornmeal cake (another Alison Roman recipe from her book Nothing Fancy), a baguette, Kettle brand salt and vinegar chips, Comté and Tomme cheeses, spicy and mild salamis, radishes, butter, salt, cherry tomatoes, taralli, strawberry and thyme jam, cherry and olive preserves, dijon mustard, Castelvetrano olives, raspberries, French sparkling apple juice, and a Maine Beer Co ‘Lunch’ IPA. Unfortunately not in the basket: the picnic blanket, so we sat on a couple of paper napkins and made the best of it!
I hope you’re having a great short week! If you enjoyed this newsletter, a like, share, or subscribe helps new people find this publication.
xx Jane
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We started decorating our apartment this year for very practical reasons -- it was an empty, bland box with no seating. However, I’ve definitely found myself falling into the optimization spiral. This was a great reminder to take a break because my home does what it needs to do, is reasonably cute, and (most importantly) I’ve got better things to do with my money. Now, the next challenge is applying this mindset to my closet.
Also thanks for the substack rec! I’ve been enjoying reading her posts.