Since we started the barn project, I hadn't had an opportunity to sit and enjoy the new space. It is still a bit under construction, and lacked any personal details to make me feel at home.
Yesterday, the coffee table arrived. It has its own story, so I will sidetrack for just a moment. I found a coffee table like this one at a shabby chic hotspot in our town, but they wanted $320, and it had quite a few scratches. The owner offered to take it down to $289, but that still seemed too expensive for a scratched up table. My husband and I spent the day looking elsewhere, but came up empty. So, I referred to a photo of the tag on the table, and it had listed the manufacturer.
A simple Google search fount the table online for $171, brand new, and free, fast shipping. It arrived yesterday, and I put it together, quite easily, in a few minutes. It has a solid wood top, wrought iron legs, and is heavy and sturdy.
After I put it together, I returned to the house to retrieve the two personal items I knew I wanted to add to the room: the poem I wrote about yesterday, One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop...
When my granddaughter's photo was placed on the mantle, I sank down into the loveseat, overwhelmed with emotion for that space. It struck me that I was in the inner sanctum of the great beautiful being of the spiritual known.
I say known, because the barn is where I have known the creator most truly. It is where Tuffy was born, 13 years ago. It is where Epona was born, and then returned from the vet, tired and alone, and lay in my lap as I stroked her body, her legs down to her little hooves, and cried. Yes, that exact spot is where we embraced her little life, or what was left of it. Cowboy's last months were spent here, too, just beyond that wall where the armoire stands. All the memories returned to me at once and this thought:
We built a room in another's house.
As I sat there, with Tuffy in my lap, a random song played, and it captured everything I was feeling--all the loss, heartache, wonder, fear, grace, gratitude, desperation, hope, happiness--all of it in one song.
It was Belle, played by Gautier Capucon.
Beautiful.
Beautiful song. String instruments have a way of tugging at hearts. I am glad you are feeling the love in your barn again. Complete with Tuffy, who looks right at home. Your sacred space is so cozy! It doesn't look like a tack room at all. At least none that I've seen. Looks more like a gathering place that love built. You are never going to want to leave your special room!!
ReplyDeleteI agree, and I can't call it a tack room. I've been referring to it as "the room." Or the "barn room." If we ever sell this place, it would probably be someone's actual tack room, but I don't plan to use it that way. I keep all my main tack in my horse trailer, because I'm on the road from spring to fall. The trailer is parked in front of my riding arena. I tack up at the trailer, then walk over to it. All of my extra saddles, bridles, blankets, etc, the real tack room, are in the old Cowgirl Cave--the shed we converted on my 50th birthday. It, too, is more convenient where it is, and has a hitching post outside of it. I can't see any scenario where I'd ever tack up in the barn. But I will keep all of my doctoring & grooming supplies in the armoire. Maybe it's a supply room?
DeleteNot even the halters are in the barn room, they hang on the outside of each stall. But my daughter did have one made some years ago with Cowboy's name on it, and it will be in the room.
I have a stall at the end of the barn that I use for barn "tack"--wood shavings, rakes, grain. We sealed it off from its adjoining run, but it does have mats, and it is ready to go, should we ever change our mind and need to convert it back. We also use it for hay overflow. I didn't want to store grain in my barn room/supply room because I don't want to attract mice.
Long story short, it is a room where I can get away from the chaos, be near my horses and barn cat, and read, write, relax, and recharge. I do hate leaving it.
We had a hard time deciding what to call our front room. Most people said we should call it an "office" but that made no sense to us. We are not running a business. We settled on the original name Saloon, although it looks and functions nothing like a Saloon. We originally thought we might use the room for playing cards etc. It has never happened. Neither of us spends much time in the Saloon. We are in/out. There is too much to do. It is more of a meeting/prep room for meds etc. Once in a while we Zoom in there, because it is very quiet. No barking dogs. Our cats love the warmth during Winter! I gave in and just this year added a litter box for them.
DeleteIt sounds like your room is a haven. I would spend a lot of time there too.
ReplyDeleteI love cello music- it does tug at the soul; Yo Yo Ma is one of my favourites.
The fireplace looks so inviting. What a perfect place to rest and recharge your soul. So many precious memories too.
I didn't know to what extent it would feel like a haven, or sanctum, but it seems to have exceeded whatever I'd hoped for. I love seeing Tuffy enjoy it. We had built a cat house for his mama and her siblings right where the leather chair sits. He was born in that cat house, but his mama eventually moved the whole litter to under the hay piles. We kept the cat house, and it had a little cat door into it, and we fed the cats there. Two were still in the barn until last spring--Girl Kitty, Tuffy's sister, who remained feral, and Tuffy, who was always a loverboy. I only petted Girl Kitty a couple times in the whole 12 years she was with us, but she loved to talk to me and come out to see me. I'd call her name, "Girl kitty," and she'd come out and meow at me. We'd do it over and over and over, and she'd purr from a distance. She always came to me, until last spring, a month or so before we broke ground on this project. That left Tuffy all alone. I brought him into our house while they did some of the work, because I didn't want him to get scared and run off. Eventually, I returned him to it, and he has thrived. He deserves a place like that, and he needs my companionship. It's nice to be needed out there again by an oldie.
DeleteSo, when I say that part of the room is where I sat with Epona as she laid her head on my lap and let me pet her, it is because I took 8' of the birthing/foaling stall into this room. The 8' I took for it was where Epona would lie down, and it is where the yellow chair/coffee table/armoire sits.
It was my doctoring stall, too, through the years, so horses on stall confinement were there. It has a lot of powerful memories.
First and foremost, though, it is Tuffy's space, and we are his guests!
It is wonderful that you have this peaceful place to recharge.
ReplyDelete