Simply Inspired

The fourth of July – a holiday of almost mythical proportion in the United States. One July 4th, I found myself reflecting on quite a mundane thing – moving house – and discovering life lessons about change, freedom and celebration. Oh, and candles play a part in it too!

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We find life lessons in the strangest of places.

Who would have thought that, as I packed and unpacked boxes of memories, I'd stumble upon a valuable insight. As I write this, it's the fourth of July, a day of celebration, freedom and change and I recall another moment in my life which echoed the sentiments of change, freedom and celebration.

Moving house is also moving memories. I was about to make that big move out of my parents', you see. And, if you've ever experienced moving, you know that the most daunting tasks are the packing, throwing away and unpacking.

Before the packing even began, I had this big vision of being so organized that I'll know where to find everything when it was time to unpack. Wishful thinking, right?

With other people in the household, it was virtually impossible to be in two places at once. Someone else had their own idea how to pack their stuff – and it wasn't necessarily in harmony with mine.

Letting Go

The throwing away part was also difficult. After much internal wrangling, I simply had to let go of things that I, at first, couldn't bear to part with. Letting go of some of them felt like having an arm cut off – it was that painful. But it was only painful for a little while. When a particular item was out of sight, it was also out of mind and I could resume with the task at hand.

What was most heart-wrenching was leaving the nest. For many years I've depended on my parents and now, I had to depend on myself (with a little help from the folks, of course.) Finally, after everything was packed, much thrown away, life loaded on the back of a panel truck, it was time to set off. A blank slate, don't we all want one?

The best thing about moving is seeing that blank slate: an empty house you can do with as you wish. And I was particularly excited to get both! I did the usual things – read magazines, set aside clippings and held on to the commitment to only buy the things I really needed but that I could be happy with. I didn't realize that decorating a home was just as taxing as moving into it!

There were so many options available and so many ways to make my home as beautiful as I envisioned it. Which was exactly the problem, I had so many visions going on at once. After weeks of wrestling with ideas, I stumbled upon a simple approach. Candles.

Now, you don't have to design your home like I did but I am hoping you will get bits and pieces of inspiration. Putting together the rooms of my new home, I focused on making them as homey, comfortable, visually appealing as possible. And, as SIMPLE as possible. That solved a lot of problems and answered a lot of questions. There's no more to it than that!

The wonderful thing was that as I looked deeper into decorating with candles, I discovered that candles actually went BEYOND simple decorating. Candles transform a room with their glow. They tie up a color scheme with the myriad of shades they come in. They suffuse a space with warmth through fragrance. And, interestingly, as aficionados of Eastern philosophies believe, they bring in different energies that can even influence one's life and personal growth.

Change

Since this whole chapter of my life is focused on change, I would think that personal growth will be a key ingredient in that! A home where you can feel… at home.

Since I don't want you to not have an inkling about what I'm talking about, I'd like to share with you a few things I've learned.

Candle colors are important in bringing in the positive energies that come from the Five Elements. This I learned from reading up on Feng Shui. And the more of these elements there are in one place, the more energy there is.

I designed my kitchen around the color green, representing the element wood – simply because green represents life. I put together a small wooden tray adorned by four green candles, some river stones and a mini plant. My kitchen now was as lifegiving as kitchens are supposed to be.

Hint: life… food… get it?

Yellow, apparently, is a great color scheme for living rooms since the earth element cultivates peace and self-confidence. It just so happened that I love yellow for my living room too!

Right now, my house is not as finished as I would like it to be. I still have some more furniture to buy and boxes to unpack. I also still have a lot to learn about the themes I have chosen for each room.

I'm thinking of using red, blue and white – in separate rooms of course! Celebrating the 4th of July is one thing, looking LIKE the 4th of July is another! What about those life lessons again?

I have not forgotten those life lessons I mentioned early in this post. Don't worry, they are what I really wanted to get to. In my experience of building a home for myself, two words stand out.

The first one is SIMPLICITY. I don't have to complicate my life with clutter, hence I can throw things out. I don't have to come up with expensive, complicated ideas to work my life (my home décor) around, thus a simple theme – candles – works wonders.

The second word is SURPRISE. Why "surprise" when I haven't really spoken about being surprised throughout this article?

In truth, the entire experience of moving was a surprise, especially in the sense that I didn't know what to expect. It was a leap of faith. Moreover, I learned to let the new experience surprise ME, including new encounters and new ideas!

In the end, every new stage in life is SIMPLY SURPRISING. The important thing is how you open yourself up to learning, how you confront the changes in life with grace, peace and confidence.

B. Almirante

staff writer

brownstoneshopper.com