The poetics of nesting

my apartment, my Valentine

A brief history of Valentine’s Days past:

• Unfruitful first date.

• Unfruitful first date: “football bowling” edition.

• Traveling to a funeral.

• Traveling to another funeral.

• Traveling via ambulance to my mother’s emergency heart surgery.

Cupid has remarkably bad aim with that arrow.

This year, I spent it moving into a new apartment, which was not unlike the first dates; I also went in nervous I’d discover things were not as advertised. But instead of saying “this was fun” and leaving at 9 pm, I found myself contractually obligated to spend the night. And the next three hundred and sixty four.

It’s hard not to be bitter when this day catches you in something un-Valentiney. So years ago, I started reminding myself it could be worse:

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I’ve written before about the poetics of platonic love. I made the case that Valentine’s Day should celebrate all the many types of love a person can experience—for a mother, a city, even an apartment.

And over the years, I’ve discovered that my relationship to my apartment is one of my greatest loves.

When I moved to Atlanta in my early twenties, living alone for the first time, it was in cultivating my space that I staved off the loneliness. My apartment became a staging ground for the act of adulthood. And the act was… entirely improv.

But it wasn’t a one-man show. I had my parents nearby who permitted me to haul dusty armoires and retro TV sets from their basement. My dad, a woodworker, made several pieces for me from scratch. He built bookcases, a ladder shelf, a chest to hide my cat’s litter box from the landlord.

And then there was my mom, who really has the gift of nesting. She had turned her home into something of an apothecary, filled with curiosities and festivities. And every time she came to visit, she brought my apartment some small festivity too—John Derian Halloween pillows, charmingly warted pumpkins, dish rags with tiny painted spruce trees.

In filling my home with the gifts—and the handiwork—of the people I loved, I peopled the space itself. I made a gallery wall of friends’ artwork. I pulled from storage the antique book collection my aunt had started for me. In December, I went back for the Nutcrackers my dad had given me as a child.

And then I moved to Madrid with two suitcases and a kindle. There was no space for hauling artwork. Or antique books. Or unfathomably fragile nutcrackers.

So I focused my nesting on routines: eating overnight oats on the balcony’s small sliver of sun, or working a puzzle on Sunday nights. It took more convincing to coax my new apartment into a home, but eventually, it too obliged.

Atlanta | Madrid

Atlanta | Madrid

So here I find myself again, opening the radiators with all the cautious optimism of new love. Tonight, I’ve got big plans to complete the edges on a 500-piecer by candlelight.

Your place or mine? I’ll ask the apartment, amusing myself. Then I’ll fumble awkwardly for a light switch I haven’t yet located. Until tomorrow, my love.

❤️🫀❤️🫀❤️

Wishing a happy Valentine’s Day to you and your loves—of all kinds. If you’d like to read my previous piece on the poetics of platonic love, you’ll find it below.