Your Kitchen Makes My Stomach Hurt

Sitting in a sky zone in nowhere suburbia certainly doesn’t seem like a place that would inspire creativity.  Why am I here?  I have 3 kids of my own and 2 extra in my wake today and it seemed liked the easiest way to entertain them for an hour or two.  Somehow, being still amongst the noise and chaos has created a need in me to write, about what I am not certain. My to do list includes the task of writing to you about the qualities and characteristics of different wood species and how that relates to your kitchen cabinets selection process. Snooze fest for me considering I just found an image on Instagram of a dark,  wickedly stormy sky surrounding an old abandoned farm house.  The house sits in a golden field of what looked to be wheat or straw dancing to the winds of the storm brewing on the horizon.  It literally made me ache with emotion. I am odd. When my eyes find a stunningly beautiful image, or my ears hear an emotional piece of music, my stomach responds with flips and somersaults as if to say “yes, I see or hear it too and it’s glorious”. Maybe it’s where the saying, “trust your gut” came from.

My little Maggie picking her own flowers from an organic farmers field. Included in my “things that make me happy” images.

As much as I like to tell people “I’m just a salesperson masquerading as a designer”, Or “I’m a small business owner first and that’s my passion,” I know beauty is what guides and moves me. It comes from the emotional connection I have with whatever I’m doing, that eye to gut thing. It can be design, dance or fashion. I love that you can express so much in these vessels of the mind and spirit.  They are visual and emotional and creative.

When I am piling samples of cabinets, countertops, backsplashes and flooring on a table for a client there is a moment when it clicks, when as I often say, my stomach hurts.  That moment is the slam dunk moment.  The why of that slam dunk can be very hard to articulate.   Why does something so beautiful affect your soul?  It just freaking does. The person that enjoys reading through the fact finding articles about things like cabinet construction and the yet to be written wood specie extravaganza article, might struggle with that answer.  Data collectors of the world struggle with the cosmic reasoning of “well it just does”.  It takes a little bit of trust to go down that path with us designer-y types, but we do see the finish line in our minds.  We have the ability to see your room as it will be, to imagine the finished product in our heads and it allows us to get really excited about it.  

So, what is the point of all this you ask?  I am asking myself the same question at the moment.  It’s important to pick the people who were genetically designed to do what they do.  If you love spreadsheets you might be a good accountant but maybe not a very successful artist.  If you are slightly disorganized but good with color and problem solving you might be a fabulous kitchen designer but a really crappy doctor.  And here is the most important thing, if words can make you emote and vivid imagery gets your stomach churning then you probably suck at writing an article on the benefits and characteristics of wood specie;-)

Where I get my fuel, in paradise. I think I could even write about oak cabinets sitting here;-)