Tag: living room

Best of L.A. home design: The 14 most memorable rooms of 2025

[ad_1]

As a design writer, I feel lucky to get to peek inside some of Los Angeles’ most iconic homes.

This year, I visited many places, from Midcentury Modern landmarks by Edward Fickett and Raphael Soriano to humble apartments filled with Facebook Marketplace finds.

The rooms that stayed with me long after I left were not always the most luxurious or expensively furnished. Instead, they were the ones that made me smile and left a lasting impression of the person who lives there.

Here are the 14 rooms that resonated with me this year and the people who live in them who inspired me even more.

A colorful, sun-drenched kitchen in Mount Washington that connects to nature

(Mariah Tauger / For The Times)

Priced out of much of Los Angeles, architect Lindsay Sheron and her husband Daniel bought a vacant hillside lot in Mount Washington and proceeded to design and build their own home. Working over a three-year period, the couple served as general contractors and did much of the work themselves. The kitchen is a standout, featuring bright green custom kitchen cabinets painted Raw Tomatillo by Farrow & Ball, which add vitality to the single-wall layout. A custom metal hood by Practice Fabrication, powder-coated the color of a Pixie tangerine, adds a sense of fun.

“I wanted our house to feel really warm and bring nature inside,” says Lindsay, referring to the Western hemlock tongue and groove planks that she and Daniel installed on the walls and ceilings. “Wood does the heavy lifting in accomplishing that.”

Tour the custom built home here.

In Hollywood, a stunning living room that’s filled with second-hand furnishings

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Caitlin Villarreal felt giddy the first time she stepped inside the Whitley Heights rental, a storied 1926 Mediterranean-style penthouse with towering ceilings, hand-carved wooden beams and a pair of arched bookcases alongside an oversize fireplace.

“It had good energy,” Villarreal said of the 1,500-square-foot apartment she rents in a historic neighborhood where Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin and Bette Davis once lived. “It’s iconic just by standing tall year after year. It has floor-to-ceiling Old Hollywood windows that blow open unexpectedly just like in the movies. It doesn’t feel like a rental. It feels like a forever home.”

Tour the Hollywood penthouse here.

A Midcentury Modern dining room in Studio City that Raphael Soriano would approve of

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Architect Linda Brettler’s list of things she loves about her Raphael Soriano-designed home is long, even though the all-aluminum structure, which was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1997, was in desperate need of updating when she purchased it in 2021. “I like doing projects like this where I get to have my own hand and feel, but I’m still honoring what was here,” Brettler says. “I’m trying to create an idealized version of what the house would look like now.” In the dining room, a reproduction of a Millard Sheets painting, rendered by Cal Poly Pomona students on Tyvek, is mounted on a cork-lined wall. Above the painting, she has mounted a projector screen for movie nights and video games.

Tour the historic all-aluminum home here.

A modern West Hollywood living room decorated with pets in mind

(Kit Karzen / For The Times)

“My original inspiration was to match the furniture to the kitties so I don’t see their cat hair,” anesthesiologist Jeffrey Hamilton says of the West Hollywood condo he shares with his boyfriend David Poli, his cats Romulus and Remus and Poli’s Husky mix, Janeway. “The cats very much informed the color scheme. I find them so handsome; it felt like having matching furniture was practical.”

In the living room, Hamilton chose a camel-colored Curvo sofa in velvet by Goop for CB2, which he found on Facebook Marketplace. Similarly, the accompanying swivel chairs from HD Buttercup and the barstool seats in the kitchen are upholstered in Bengal and Husky-durable textiles that camouflage their rescues pet hair.

“Jeffrey likes to say that everything in his apartment is a rescue, including me,” says Poli jokingly.

Tour the West Hollywood condo here.

A surprising Silver Lake kitchen that doubles as a retro video store

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Chris Rose fondly remembers the days when he worked at the independent video store I Luv Video in Austin, Texas.

Now an L.A.-based writer, director and producer, Rose, 41, recalls the Austin store’s eclectic assortment of cult oddities and world cinema.

Although he can no longer visit the video store, Rose doesn’t have to go far to rent these days, as he has brought a similar yet distinctive collection to the kitchen of his one-bedroom bungalow in Silver Lake.

Tour the Silver Lake apartment here.

Two college friends transform a Glassell Park living room (and garage) into an art-filled escape

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Antonio Adriano Puleo didn’t intend to renovate his traditional 1946 bungalow, but after consulting with architectural designer Ben Warwas, who told him he could transform the house into a “forever home,” the artist changed his plans.

“The living room wasn’t big enough, and it featured a huge red brick fireplace that had doors on either side of it, leading to the backyard,” said Warwas.

The living room of the main house is now open and airy, with custom cabinets and millwork by James Melinat that showcase the artwork Puleo made himself and the pieces he has collected for more than 30 years. The living room’s fireplace is gone, but the wooden mantle remains atop a console behind the sofa, graced with a series of colorful ceramic planters by Ashley Campbell and Brian Porray of Happy Hour Ceramics.

“Little tweaks totally transformed the house,” Warwas said.

Tour the house and ADU here.

A fabulous wet bar in a West Hollywood apartment that’s perfect for parties

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Growing up in a small town outside of Cleveland, Tyler Piña was fascinated by Los Angeles and the glamour of Hollywood.

“My dad grew up out here, and it’s where my parents met,” says the 33-year-old screenwriter. “I remember looking at old Polaroids of them in the ‘80s and seeing how much fun they had.”

His attraction to Los Angeles, however, was more than just nostalgia. “I was mesmerized by the landscapes and architecture,” he says.

Looking back, he can’t believe he realized his dream of moving to Los Angeles from San Francisco in 2018 and eventually renting a Midcentury Modern penthouse by Edward Fickett steps from the Sunset Strip.

“A Midcentury Modern penthouse on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of West Hollywood, with a bar in the living room? I mean, does it get more iconic? I am, in no way, cool enough to live here,” says Piña.

Tour the Midcentury apartment here.

A bedroom in Beachwood Canyon is transformed into an art-filled office (and occasional guest room)

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

When Natalie Babcock and Samuel Gibson found a listing for a sunny apartment in Beachwood Canyon five years ago, they immediately fell for the two bedroom’s charming built-in bookshelves, faux fireplace, hardwood floors and formal dining room. Practical amenities such as an in-unit laundry and a garage, which are often elusive in Los Angeles rentals, didn’t hurt.

Today, however, the couple says they are most impressed by the sense of belonging they have found in the community just outside their 1928 Spanish fourplex. Here, where tourists and brides in wedding gowns often pose for photographs in the middle of the street in an effort to capture the Hollywood sign in the background, Babcock and Gibson have become part of a larger family. “Everyone knows our dogs’ names,” says Babcock.

The couple’s taste is vibrant, and the colorful interiors reflect their sense of fun and love of design. They painted one wall in Gibson’s office a dramatic Kelly green, which makes the white-trimmed windows and his extensive art collection pop.

“Art is one thing that I am always happy to spend money on,” Gibson says.

Tour the Beachwood Canyon apartment here.

A treasures-filled living room in Eagle Rock that’s a colorful showstopper

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Isa Beniston and Scotty Zaletel are romantics. Not just in their love for each other, which they are as vocal about three years in as budding high school crushes, but also in the way they describe the contents of their 412-square-foot one-bedroom apartment. They can recall the season they discovered each treasure — from fruit-shaped throw pillows to more than 30 animal portraits — and the cross streets of the flea markets from which they bought them. They gush about the time they’ve spent together in fabric stores and flooring supply shops as if they were dimly lighted restaurants primed for date night.

“We both just love stuff,” the two said in near-unison.

— Lina Abascal

Tour the 412-square foot apartment here.

A tricked-out garage/ADU in Venice that serves as an office, gym and family hub

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

“They’re fun,” architect Aejie Rhyu says of the creative couple Will Burroughs and Frith Dabkowski, as she walked by the undulating two-story ADU she helped them realize.

Rhyu’s assessment helps to explain the joy that permeates the family compound, from the pink Los Angeles Toile wallpaper in the bedroom (humorously adorned with illustrations of L.A.’s beloved mountain lion P-22, the La Brea Tar Pits and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre) to the tricked-out garage on the first floor, which includes overhead bike storage, an espresso maker, a mini-fridge and a large flat-screen TV that allows Sydney-born Burroughs to watch Formula One car races and cricket games at 4 a.m. when his family is asleep.

Burroughs even installed a subwoofer speaker beneath the sofa to give the garage the feel of a movie theater during family movie nights. “Jack went flying off the couch when we watched ‘Top Gun,’ ” he said of their son, laughing.

Tour the two-story ADU with a rooftop deck here.

A serene guest room in Mid-Wilshire that’s a light-filled studio for a textile artist

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

After living in her two-bedroom apartment in Los Feliz for more than a decade, Debra Weiss encountered a problem experienced by many renters in Los Angeles: She was evicted.

When her son-in-law spotted a charming two-bedroom apartment near the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Zillow, her initial reaction was, “I want this,” Weiss said of the fourplex.

The rental had high ceilings, oak floors, ample sunlight, an appealing fireplace, a garage and a washer and dryer.

In the guest room, a wall hanging composed of three separate weavings in a gingham check pattern is embroidered with a series of characters she based on her 5-year-old granddaughter’s drawings. “It’s about people coming together in chaos and supporting each other,” Weiss said.

Even though the process of having to move was stressful, Weiss is happy with her new home and neighborhood. “I take the Metro bus everywhere and hardly ever drive,” she said. “Everything worked out perfectly.”

Tour the sunny Mid-Wilshire fourplex here.

A ’70s-inspired speakeasy/lounge in Highland Park that’s hidden behind a bookcase

(Carianne Older / For The Times)

Standing beneath a glittering tiered chandelier in her pink “cloffice,” designer Dani Dazey shares the essence of her colorful style: “From the wallpaper to the artwork, my home is a reflection of me right now,” she explains. “It’s a personal and hip twist on traditional design.”

Rather than embrace rustic farmhouse style or minimalist Midcentury Modern design as is often the case in Los Angeles, Dazey has taken the Highland Park home she shares with husband Phillip Butler and given it an over-the-top maximalist spin.

The speakeasy lounge, accessible through a hidden door sliding bookcase, is a ‘70s-inspired sanctuary with a modular sofa, curtains and wallpaper in the same floral pattern.

Their home is proof, that our homes should make us happy by reflecting who we are. In Dazey’s case, that translates to bold color, lush textures and retro vibes.

Tour the Highland Park home here.

A memento-filled living room in Long Beach is an ode to ‘the people we love’

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

A sense of fun permeates the rooms of Cecilia and Abraham Beltran’s colorful one-bedroom Midcentury apartment in Long Beach.

“We both have a deep passion for Midcentury design and color,” Cecilia shares.

The Beltrans’ apartment encapsulates their design sensibility and “above all, the people we love,” Cecilia says. There’s bold, Midcentury Modern-inspired furniture the couple found on Craigslist, tongue-in-cheek smiling pillows and the “Hole to Another Universe” wall decal by Blik, which can be removed when they move. Peppered throughout the space are mementos from their travels, such as the limited-edition art print “La Famille” purchased on a trip to London in 2023.

Ultimately, Cecilia says, she wants the apartment “to feel like us. I think we pulled it off.”

Tour the Long Beach apartment here.

In Reseda, an apartment where every antique tells a story

(Stephen Ross Goldstein / For The Times)

When Evelyn Bauer, 97, downsized from her four-bedroom home in Sherman Oaks to an apartment in Reseda in 2014, the longtime collector and antiques dealer was forced to relinquish many of her personal belongings.

“Collecting is my passion, my addiction, and I’m so happy to be afflicted with it,” says Bauer, whose two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment at an independent living facility for seniors is filled with furnishings and decorative arts from her 65 years as a collector.

Step inside her living room, and the vast collection of antiques feels like entering the former Encino Antique Center, where she was once the proprietor during the 1990s. Each item has a story, a memory and a unique charm that she cherishes.

“There’s always room for one more gem,” she says.

Tour the Reseda apartment here.

[ad_2]

Lisa Boone

Source link

December 22, 2025
This stylish L.A. rental is designed so they never have to worry about pet hair again

[ad_1]

Jeffrey Hamilton came to live in an empty condominium, as many do, after a painful breakup.

“It was a stressful time even though it was an amicable breakup,” says the 38-year-old anesthesiologist. “I had two weeks to move and was desperate to find something.”

In this series, we spotlight L.A. rentals with style. From perfect gallery walls to temporary decor hacks, these renters get creative, even in small spaces. And Angelenos need the inspiration: Most are renters.

Hamilton, who is drawn to “gallery-esque white boxes,” ultimately settled in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects-designed condo four blocks away in West Hollywood. With few possessions other than his cats, he proceeded to furnish the unit with secondhand items he found primarily on Facebook Marketplace.

During the process, he says, he found himself.

“It was the first time I had lived on my own in a long time and it was nice to listen to my own instincts,” says Hamilton, sitting in the living room of his elegant condo, which he now shares with his boyfriend David Poli, his cats Romulus and Remus and Poli’s Husky mix, Janeway (named for Kathryn Janeway, the first female captain on the television series “Star Trek: Voyager”). All the pets are rescues.

Not to be upstaged by Romulus the cat, Janeway, a husky mix adopted from Hollywood Huskies, makes a statement in the living room.

Black CB2 shelves Hamilton found on Facebook Marketplace store artfully arranged ceramics, books and his and his boyfriend’s shoes.

“Jeffrey likes to say that everything in his apartment is a rescue, including me,” says Poli jokingly.

When Hamilton adopted his cats six years ago during his medical residency in San Diego, they were kittens; now, as adults, he says, the spotted Bengal cats have not just grown but have influenced his design choices in his new home.

The den features more pet-friendly choices including a Rove Concepts modular sofa that Hamilton bought on clearance. “It’s a little small for two grown men and three pets,” he says.

“My original inspiration was to match the furniture to the kitties so I don’t see their cat hair,” he says. “The cats very much informed the color scheme. I find them so handsome; it felt like having matching furniture was practical.”

In the living room, for instance, Hamilton chose a camel-colored Curvo sofa in velvet by Goop for CB2, which he found on Facebook Marketplace. Similarly, the accompanying swivel chairs from HD Buttercup and the barstool seats in the kitchen are upholstered in Bengal and Husky-durable textiles that camouflage pet hair.

Actor Kit Williamson, a Hollywood friend who has tackled many of his own interior design projects, says Hamilton and Poli’s home is more than just a safe place to land. “I love that Jeffrey’s design for the apartment was inspired by his cats — and that David’s dog not only gets along with the cats, but complements the color palette,” he says. “It’s not just cohesive, it’s kismet.”

A second-hand desk from Facebook Marketplace in the bedroom provides a place for remote work.

No need for lint rollers as Janeway blends in with the furnishings.

Hamilton grew up in the Bay Area but has moved around the country for his education and medical training, including stints in New York City, San Francisco, San Diego and Seattle. So when he moved to Los Angeles for good in 2022, he found shopping for furnishings on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace to be a great way to get to know the city.

“It was nice originally because I was new to L.A., and it helped me get a better sense of Los Angeles,” he says. “I ventured to Woodland Hills and Calabasas — I got a lot of vintage stuff in Woodland Hills.”

Living alone, Hamilton says, is what allowed him to “find space and time to honor” his own interests a little more.

Hamilton’s condo in West Hollywood, which was designed by Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects, includes an outdoor patio and a rooftop deck with views of the Hollywood Hills.

“I think with medical school, residency and fellowship training, I didn’t have much time and space or resources to self-examine, as so much of my time was occupied working and thinking about the wellness of others,” he says.

For him, part of his process for creating a welcoming home was focusing on “sustainable goods — things that were used, vintage or local,” he says.

That accounts for some of Hamilton’s home decor selections: The CB2 bookshelves from Facebook Marketplace, which store artfully arranged ceramics, books and the couple’s neatly stacked shoes and a travertine dining room table, also from Facebook Marketplace.

Down the hall, in their bedroom, is a second-hand desk from Facebook Marketplace where Poli can work from home several days a week. “It’s a little beat-up, which I like,” Hamilton says. “I like things that are shiny and nice but also beat-up around the edges. Nothing too perfect. “

Romulus reclines on the camel-colored velvet sofa in the living room.

And then there is the art. “It was important to me to have pieces from either local artisans or artists who are L.A.-based,” he says, noting the tall, plaster lamp in the living room by Kate O’Connor and a graphic stoneware bowl by Chad Callaghan atop his marble coffee table.

In the living room, Hamilton hung a large-scale artwork by Texas-based painter Jason Adkins for General Public, a company developed by Portia de Rossi that licenses and 3D-prints artworks. In the den, another Adkins piece for General Public hangs alongside a vintage print by Cy Twombly. “They feel like real paintings,” he says of the Synographs. “You can’t tell the difference. “

Elegant, clutter-free and homey, the condominium is a calm place to come home to after working long shifts, including overnights, at Children’s Hospital. “A sense of calm and serenity was probably a very important implicit priority,” Hamilton says. “My work can be very stressful at times, so having a place of refuge came naturally.”

Luckily, balancing comfort and pets is another thing that came naturally to the couple after they moved in together.

The open-concept kitchen is modern and streamlined.

“We have a nice synergy,” Hamilton says of Poli. “We tend to agree when it comes to interior design.”

“I’m more of a minimalist,” Poli says. “Jeffrey likes pillows too much. It’s getting a little busy in here,” he adds, teasing his partner.

“I do like pillows,” Hamilton says, noting that he recently bought a sewing machine so he can make his own soft furnishings. “I’ve learned that the best outdoor pillows for pets are from Arhaus. They don’t stain, and they are really durable.”

Like many millennials his age, Hamilton often thinks about buying a home but finds real estate prices, combined with the housing shortage in Los Angeles, daunting. “It’s so expensive,” he says. “I keep doing the math, get approved for a mortgage, then see the interest rates and how much you have to put down — and I just can’t do it. My rent is ridiculous, but it’s more economical than any mortgage I’ve seen in West Hollywood.”

For now, Hamilton enjoys living in a 30-unit building in a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood with a rooftop deck overlooking the Sunset Strip. “I don’t need a ton of space,” he says. “Maybe a condo in West Hollywood would be a nice starting point someday.”

After all, he’s learned he’s good at starting over.

[ad_2]

Lisa Boone

Source link

November 10, 2025
These are the homeware stores where all the interiors influencers shop
[ad_1]
Online furniture stores have completely changed how we shop for our homes – battling with tape measures under fluorescent showroom lighting has been replaced by hours of scrolling and daydreaming from the sofa. Whether you’re after a mid-century dining table, a sculptural accent chair, or a chic storage solution for all that stuff you swore you’d declutter, the digital world is full of design-led options that make creating your dream space surprisingly effortless.

The beauty of shopping online is the access it gives you – to boutique makers you might never stumble across on the high street, to custom pieces that feel really personal, and to interiors inspiration by the bucketload (hello, Pinterest and Insta). There’s confidence in buying furniture online now, too. Many companies have stepped up their game with generous return policies (think brands like Simba and Emma battling it out to offer the longest sleep trials) and free fabric swatches that make it easy to picture how things will work in your home (think big sofa brands like Swyft or Darlings of Chelsea). Plus, with sustainability and craftsmanship becoming bigger priorities, many of the best online furniture stores are as focused on quality and responsible production as they are on aesthetics.

So, whether you’re refreshing one room or starting from scratch in the new pad you’ve just picked up the keys for, these are the names worth bookmarking. From affordable but design-savvy retailers to high-end collections that feel straight out of an interiors mag, the best online furniture stores prove that good design is more accessible than ever. All that’s left to do? Pop the kettle on, open your laptop, and prepare to fall down one very stylish rabbit hole.

SKIP TO:

What are the best online furniture stores in the UK?

This totally depends on what you’re after, your personal decor style and budget, so we’ve outlined what each furniture brand is best for down below. The White Company delivers on both style and quality, while Dusk is best for luxury for less, think: the best duvets, best bed sheets and best duvet covers), while H&M Home is great for storage solutions. We’d highly recommend Simba, Emma, and Nectar for sleep essentials, including the best mattresses, best mattresses for side sleepers, pillows for side sleepers and bed frames.

What is the most high-end furniture store?

Soho Home reigns supreme as one of the most high-end furniture stores in this edit. Stocking design-led pieces inspired by the furnishings inside their iconic properties (think: Soho Farmhouse, Babington or Shoreditch House), everything from the brand’s floor lamps to its chaises are dripping in opulence. The best online furniture store if you have a little more to spend, for sure.

Is it better to buy furniture online?

When it comes to shopping for furniture, you have the option to either visit physical stores or browse online, each with its own advantages and drawbacks. Shopping in person allows you to actually see the furniture you’re shopping for, allowing you to gain a better understanding of its quality, materials, and comfort level. However, this method can be time-consuming, and transporting large items home can be challenging. On the other hand, online shopping offers convenience and a wider selection, allowing you to compare prices and styles easily.

When is the best time of year to buy furniture?

In short, it’s worth waiting for Black Friday or Amazon Prime Day to drop. The January sales are another great time to pick up furniture deals, and outside of those, brands like Wayfair and Dunelm run mid-season sales to help you save on big purchases.

What should you consider when shopping for furniture?

When you’re on the hunt for furniture, it’s important to think about a few key things to make sure you end up with pieces that fit your home and lifestyle perfectly. First off, consider how you’ll use the furniture and where it’ll go in your space. Make sure it’s the right size and style to match your existing decor, and take a close look at the materials and construction to ensure durability. Of course, budget matters too, so make sure you check out a range of retailers to find items that strike the right balance between quality and price that works for you.

The best furniture stores at a glance…

How we chose the best online furniture stores

Whether you’re looking for a luxe mattress, an anxiety-reducing weighted blanket, or a stylish wardrobe, our team of editors and contributors at Glamour HQ have attended exclusive press events and rigorously tested products to stay in-the-know of the hottest items in the interior design sphere. We chose the best online furniture stores by looking for standout design features, sustainability credentials, and vast price ranges to suit every budget. We’ve only listed furniture stores that we can personally vouch for, having tested items from the brands in person, spoken to their representatives, and thoroughly evaluated their customer reviews to get an solid idea of what customer’s are saying about each brands homeware offerings.

Why you can trust us

Glamour’s in-house shopping team is committed to helping readers discover the best products across every category we cover, as explained in detail on our how we test page. To ensure our recommendations are accurate and insightful, the team regularly consults with specialists across various interiors categories, gaining a deeper understanding of the products we review and the key features that matter most.
- Best for: Modern, handcrafted pieces that blend perfectly with your own personal style and which are made to mirror the look of the numerous Soho Houses around the world.
- Pros: Excellent craftsmanship.
- Cons: You won’t be able to cash in on the Soho House discount unless you’re a member.
- Customers are saying: Great online team and first-class furniture.
[ad_2]

Mayola Fernandes, Ali Howard

Source link
October 26, 2025
Thanks to a tiny ADU, an L.A. home transforms into a stunning art gallery and studio

[ad_1]

Antonio Adriano Puleo didn’t intend to renovate his traditional 1946 bungalow in the Glassell Park neighborhood just north of Mt. Washington, but after consulting with architectural designer Ben Warwas, who told him he could transform the house into a “forever home,” the artist changed his plans.

“I originally wanted an ADU,” Puleo said of adding an accessory dwelling unit to expand the art studio in his garage. “For me, it was about having a bigger studio and being able to have collectors and curators come to the studio.”

However, as Warwas explored the two-bedroom home and corner property — the designer had previously designed and built a wood deck in Puleo’s backyard — he began to envision a new narrative for the spaces.

The Glassell Park home before the renovations.

(Ben Warwas)

The exterior of the house and ADU is now painted bright yellow. There’s also easy access to the outdoors.

“The living room wasn’t big enough, and it featured a huge red brick fireplace that had doors on either side of it, leading to the backyard,” said Warwas, who first met Puleo when they were undergraduate students at Massachusetts College of Art (now called Massachusetts College of Art and Design). “To access the outdoors, you had to walk down concrete steps to a covered patio.”

Paired with a third door off the kitchen, the home’s entrance to the backyard was awkward at best.

After touring the property, Warwas proposed some subtle changes: adding a 250-square-foot ADU to the garage, removing the fireplace and raising the ceiling height in the living room; adding a loft bedroom in the attic; and redesigning the exterior of the house.

The front of the 1946 house remains the same.

“It was a small project, but there were a lot of issues with the house,” Warwas said. “I thought, ‘Why don’t I propose four different things and he can choose two or three of them?’ He chose all four.”

Puleo, 49, purchased the bungalow in 2010 for $387,500 after seeing an ad for a two-bedroom home “priced well for a quick sale” in Glassell Park. Although only 1,000 square feet in size, the house offered a backyard for his dog and a detached garage.

“The garage was really the draw,” Puleo said. “The thing about the house that attracted me is that it had a space that could be a studio.”

The living room of Puleo’s Glassell Park home before it was redone.

(Ben Warwas)

Puleo, standing, and Warwas in the living room today. “We both have a love of design,” Puleo said of his longtime friend.

Shortly after purchasing the house, Puleo renovated the kitchen and bathroom, opened up the wall between the two spaces and widened the kitchen door. “There were so many doors,” he said of the compartmentalized floor plan. “Doors in the kitchen; doors in the dining room.”

Still, it wasn’t easy to reach the garage, which housed his art studio, and the adjacent laundry room. “I was always frustrated with the house because it was not maximizing space efficiently,” Puleo said. “The studio was detached, and we had to enter through a gate.”

And so the makeover began.

Warwas tore out the fireplace and extended the living room by six feet, adding a sleek Fleetwood sliding door that provided instant access to the backyard. Then, he raised the ceiling of the living room and added a sculptural curve that completely transformed the living space.

Because the home had a complex roof and an accessible attic, Warwas then transformed the attic into a loft that Puleo uses as his main bedroom. (The two bedrooms on the first floor are used as a den and a gallery space/guest room.) Thanks to the high ceilings and a new skylight, the attic now floods the center of the living room below with natural light.

Puleo’s patterned canvases hang in the ADU.

The ADU, which is attached to the garage, and just six inches from the main house, features a kitchen, bathroom and living area. Puleo is using it as part of his art studio.

“Little tweaks totally transformed the house,” Warwas said.

In the garage, Warwas designed an ADU that can function as an art studio or rental, featuring a small kitchen, bathroom and enough room for a bed. The design of the ADU was carefully considered to maximize space and light, with a skylight and high window flooding the space with light.

A level shift offers a dramatic experience when you step into the ADU, as the floor drops below to the art studio and the ceiling goes up, creating a sense of spaciousness.

Puleo chose bright blue tiles from Daltile for the shower of the ADU.

The living room of the main house is now open and airy, with custom cabinets and millwork by James Melinat that showcase the artwork Puleo made himself and the pieces he has collected for more than 30 years, including ceramic pendants by Torbjörn Vejvi and Courtney Duncan, vessels by Bari Ziperstein and Pilar Wiley, and paintings by Patricia Fernández and Steven Criqui.

The living room’s fireplace is gone, but the wooden mantle remains atop a console behind the sofa, graced with a series of colorful ceramic planters by Ashley Campbell and Brian Porray of Happy Hour Ceramics.

“Ben and I have known each other since we were in college,” Puleo said, emphasizing their long-standing relationship and the collaborative nature of their process. “The fun thing about the project is that we did a lot of back and forth in terms of communicating shapes and forms. We both have a love of design, and Ben does a great job of using traditional materials in a way that ignites them and increases the dynamics of a space.”

Puleo’s art studio, a former garage, rests a few steps below the new ADU.

On a recent visit, Warwas was still fine-tuning home improvement possibilities. “You could put a stackable washer and dryer here,” he suggested to Puleo as they stood in the hallway. (Puleo had moved the appliances from the laundry room in the garage to the basement of the main house.)

Similarly, Warwas appreciates Puelo’s curatorial skills. “He’s made his home so personal,” Warwas said of his friend, who, for the last year, has featured the works of local artists in one of the downstairs bedrooms, which served as an art gallery.

“It’s an amazing house,” Warwas said of the interiors, which are enhanced by the artworks and make visitors feel connected to the space.

“People often take notes when they come to visit,” Puleo said of his art collection.

1

2

1. Designer Ben Warwas stands inside the 250-square foot ADU, which features a tall window and a skylight. 2. In the former garage, stairs from the art studio lead up to the ADU and bathroom. (Lisa Boone / Los Angeles Times )

From the sidewalk, the traditional stucco bungalow looks like so many others in the neighborhood. But step into the backyard, past the colorful paintings, textiles, tiles, stained glass and ceramics and the new rear exterior — painted a bright yellow — and it’s like a completely different property.

“The front of the house didn’t change, and the back of the house is totally different,” Warwas said of the exterior, which reminds him of a piece of paper that has been cut up and folded together. “It’s a fun moment.”

That he was able to totally transform the house without adding much square footage does not escape him. “It creates a landscape where you can travel back and forth, and the garden is now much more a part of the house,” Warwas said. “The yard got smaller, but it feels bigger.”

A stained-glass panel by Puleo hangs in the bathroom.

Mixed-media pieces by Megan Reed are on display in Puleo’s bedroom art gallery.

Despite a $95,000 ADU addition eventually growing into a $320,000 overhaul for the property, Puleo is happy to have the flexibility that comes with living in a home with two separate spaces.

“I could add a lofted bed and live in the ADU and make art and rent out the house if I wanted,” Puleo said. “It would allow me to go back and forth between the East and West coasts and teach and be with my family in Boston.”

As he sat taking it all in from his dining room table overlooking the San Gabriel Mountains, the artist said, “The house is super efficient now. This is a magical space.”

Puleo also chose colorful textiles for his dog Ono’s bed.

[ad_2]

Lisa Boone

Source link

October 8, 2025
He dreamed of a midcentury haven in L.A. He found it in an iconic rental off Sunset

[ad_1]

Growing up in a small town outside of Cleveland, Tyler Piña was fascinated by Los Angeles and the glamour of Hollywood.

“My dad grew up out here, and it’s where my parents met,” says the 33-year-old screenwriter and Emmy Award-winning director of “Next Level With Lauren Goode.” “I remember looking at old Polaroids of them in the ‘80s and seeing how much fun they had.”

In this series, we spotlight L.A. rentals with style. From perfect gallery walls to temporary decor hacks, these renters get creative, even in small spaces. And Angelenos need the inspiration: Most are renters.

His attraction to Los Angeles, however, was more than just nostalgia. “I was mesmerized by the landscapes and architecture,” he says, noting the Santa Monica Mountains that run alongside the Pacific Ocean and glass-and-steel Case Study Houses such as the Stahl House, perched on a hillside overlooking Los Angeles.

“I had never seen anything like it in Ohio,” he says. “It felt like another world, so far from reach. Yet it was a life I aspired to live one day.”

Looking back, he can’t believe he realized his dream of moving to Los Angeles from San Francisco in 2018 and eventually renting a Midcentury Modern penthouse steps from the Sunset Strip.

“A Midcentury Modern penthouse on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of West Hollywood, with a bar in the living room? I mean, does it get more iconic? I am, in no way, cool enough to live here,” says Piña.

“It’s a little bit of a fishbowl,” Piña says, standing inside his living room with views of a Netflix billboard through the unit’s floor-to-ceiling windows. (It’s an ad for “Happy Gilmore 2” that reads “When Life Gives You S— for Breakfast … Go to Your Happy Place.”)

More than once, Piña has been caught sitting on his couch in his underwear, writing scripts on his laptop, as Hollywood tour buses stop at the traffic light outside.

In other instances, friends have driven by his building and texted him, “‘Hey, I just drove by and saw you in your living room,’” he says, laughing.

Although he feels like he is living in a fishbowl at times, Piña draws energy from the city outside his windows.

The two-story, 22-unit Sunset Lanai apartment complex, designed by acclaimed midcentury architect Edward H. Fickett and built in 1952 by developer George Alexander, is an oasis in the middle of a bustling part of the city. That is because Fickett designed the West Hollywood apartments to face inward, toward a lush courtyard and swimming pool, avoiding the activity of the Sunset Strip.

Piña’s penthouse apartment spans almost the entire top floor and boasts many of the architectural touches that Fickett was known for including as an indoor-outdoor floor plan that connects to a lanai, vaulted ceilings, partial walls and lots of glass.

Over the years, the apartment’s owners and the West Hollywood City Council have debated its relevance as a historic landmark that needs preservation. But talk to Piña, and he’ll tell you it’s special.

The Sunset Lanai apartments were designed by noted modernist architect Edward Fickett and constructed by George Alexander in 1952.

“I walked by the apartment every day before I moved in and was always curious what it looked like inside,” he says. “When I saw the ‘for rent’ sign, I immediately went on a tour. But the price was a little high for me, so I waited.”

His patience paid off as the apartment stood vacant for seven months during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following several price reductions, Piña, his boyfriend at that time and a friend of theirs rented the 2,850-square-foot unit for $5,200 a month in 2020.

“Right away it felt like home,” he says of the first time he stepped inside. “This was the place I grew up dreaming about.”

Piña, right, and his boyfriend, Vittorio Manole, stand in the lanai in front of the apartment.

The lanai has enough room for a gym, washer and dryer and a lounge. It also has ample built-in storage.

Inside, the apartment is a treasure trove of unique features. The expansive living room seamlessly connects to a formal dining room, which in turn leads to an updated kitchen with stainless steel appliances, all with a view of Sunset Boulevard. Two bedrooms and two bathrooms, each with more built-in storage than they can use, sit off an intersecting hallway.

At the center of the living room, a stylish enclosed wet bar, an original design by Fickett, exudes a “Mad Men” vibe. On the wall behind the bar, Piña hung a peel-and-stick wallpaper that he found on Etsy, reminiscent of the iconic banana-leaf wallpaper at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and a yellow neon sign that reads “Lost in euphoria.”

“There’s something really special about a Fickett building,” Piña says. “A Midcentury Modern penthouse on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of West Hollywood, with a bar in the living room? I mean, does it get more iconic? I am, in no way, cool enough to live here.”

“In a way, I guess decorating is just another medium for me to express my creativity like I do with film and writing,” Piña says.

“I tried my best to do this space justice,” Piña says, referring to his frantic two-week effort to decorate the apartment while working on “Comeback Coach” and “Women in Business,” two reality shows sponsored by Verizon. He has also worked on trailers for Amazon, shot and edited commercials for Google, Levi’s and Sephora, edited “Making Emilia Perez” for Netflix and wrote and directed the award-winning documentary “88 Cents.”

“At my previous place, I slowly decorated over time,” he says. “By the time it finally felt perfect, it was time to move out. In this space, I wanted it to feel lived in right away so I could enjoy it fully for as long as possible.”

Working until 3 in the morning, Piña sourced Midcentury-inspired furniture from the online retailer All Modern, CB2 and several local vintage shops. He also purchased a variety of furnishings, plants and accessories on Etsy and Offer Up as well as artworks by local artists, photographers and friends.

Inspired by a print on wood by Australian photographer Sarah Bahbah in his dining room, Piña decorated the living and dining room in a similar color palette. Similarly, copper-colored bar stools he spotted in a small shop in San Francisco inspired the bar area.

The bedroom is dark and moody, with windows that look out over the Sunset Strip.

Explaining his decorating process, Piña says he likes to start with a statement piece such as an artwork, rug or piece of furniture and then build a story around it. “In a way, I guess decorating is just another medium for me to express my creativity like I do with film and writing,” he says.

Adding to the spacious floor plan is a lanai, which has enough room for weights, mats and a Peloton, as well as a lounge area, washer and dryer, sink and a huge walk-in storage space. “I have a projector and have hosted movie nights,” Piña says.

The formal dining room connects to an updated kitchen with stainless steel appliances that faces Sunset Boulevard.

At night, Piña says his apartment glows from the streetlights and soaks up the energy from the neighborhood. “It’s the best place to have a good cry,” he says. “Because you never feel alone. I put so much love into this apartment. And it’s given me so much back in return. And the tears I cried here, the immense struggles that I faced — a pandemic, losing work from the strikes, multiple relationships that came and went. But even in the hard moments, there was so much beauty. The architecture brings this place to life.”

But like so many good things that come to an end, Piña recently decided to move out of the apartment after his roommate left.

Piña moves on with nothing but happy memories.

“I’m ready for the next dream,” he says.

Last month, Piña sold and donated all of his furniture. He plans to travel to Europe and Asia and work remotely for a while. “Just me and a suitcase,” he says.

According to the director, he enjoyed selling his furnishings on Facebook Marketplace and plans on using it as a source for his next home. “I met so many cool people from all over the city,” he says. “The whole concept of passing items down versus buying new just makes the home feel more lively in my opinion, like every item comes with its own story and a bit of love — not to mention it’s way more cost-effective.”

He leaves Los Angeles with his Polaroids, just like his parents.

“And all the amazing memories,” he says. “Those are coming with me.”

[ad_2]

Lisa Boone

Source link

September 11, 2025
How a local mom found affordable, custom furniture and transformed her home

[ad_1]

HOUSTON – Brittany Franklin is a busy mom. Her daughter Stevie just turned one year old, she runs local non-profit Sky High for Kids, and although she and her husband had discussed moving to another house once their baby was born, they decided they wanted to make their current home work better for them.

First, they tackled their living room — the main gathering space for their family and friends.

“We for so long had two big chairs and a small couch, and it just made the room very crowded,” said Franklin, who worked with the design team at Living Designs Furniture to help her vision come to life.

Now, Franklin has an oversized sofa with two moveable ottomans so she has enough seating that a large sectional would have provided, but the flexibility to adjust the furniture based on her needs. The result? A more open, usable space.

“Now we have so much space and we can gather,” said Franklin.

The fabric she chose is a beautiful, stain-resistant Crypton that will stay looking new for years to come.

In addition to upgrading her living area, Franklin designed furniture for her bedroom, guest room, dining room, kitchen nook, and sitting area — giving her entire house a more beautiful, livable feeling. Watch the full video to see the result.

Right now, you can schedule a free, one on one design consultation by visiting LivingDesignsFurniture.com or by calling 713-921-5098. You can also get 20% off at Living Designs Furniture and at Texas Mattress Makers by using Brittany Franklin’s code: Brittany’s Crew.

Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.

[ad_2]

Source link

May 7, 2024
There Are Too Many Ways to Exercise

[ad_1]

This year, I’m going to get into shape. It does not matter that I’ve made this same resolution every year for more than a decade, or that I gave up after a month each time. In 2024, I mean it. Unlike years past, my motivation is not aesthetic but utilitarian: I want to get fit so I stop feeling like garbage. As I enter my late 30s, I’m struggling with the health issues that come with the terrain—high blood pressure, lower-back pain, and persistently achy joints. On top of those, I’m a new mom, chronically sleep-deprived and exhausted. My six-month-old son saps all my energy but also steels my resolve to protect it.

With all my new motivation, I first had to find a workout regime. Scrolling through social media for inspiration, I saw athletes of every variety across my feed. There were people sweating it out at a Navy SEAL–style workout, a Muay Thai–inspired kickboxing class, and a workout designed and taught by former inmates. Yoga isn’t just yoga anymore; it can be hot, aerial, acrobatic, Drake, and even goat. Personal trainers shout commands through media including YouTube, VR headsets, and, uh, mirrors. You can work out alone or in a group (or alone in a group, if Peloton is your thing). For the graceful, there is barre; for the nerds, there is a Lord of the Rings–themed app that logs exercise as movement from the Shire to Mordor.

We are living in a golden age of fitness: With workouts to accommodate every skill level, interest, time commitment, and social capacity, it should be easier than ever for novices to find one and get started. But it’s not. Instead of finding a workout that suited me, choice overload left me even more inert, and less motivated, than I was when I started my search. If you’re serious about committing to a fitness regime, choosing one isn’t just about moving your body. It could shape your future schedule, lifestyle, and even identity. To others, the way you exercise might say something about who you are, whether that’s a marathon maniac or a #PelotonMom. To the exercise newbie, this can make the stakes feel dauntingly high.

The stakes are high. Exercise will lead to results only if you do it consistently, potentially spending hours on it each week. It’s essential to pick right. I was never fitter than when I played in a basketball league in my early 20s and was held accountable for going to games and practice. Since then, I’ve only dabbled in activities—like kickboxing, spinning, and something called Dance Church. None of them stuck. In the search for the ideal workout, baseline criteria include practical concerns such as location and affordability. No matter how exciting the class, a gym that’s out of the way or prohibitively expensive is not one you will attend regularly. Then there is what I call doability—as in, Can my body do that? Answering honestly can eliminate unlikely options, such as the grueling circuit that turned actors into Spartans for the movie 300. Being too pragmatic, however, can also stifle fitness aspirations. If your goal is an eight-pack, the “lazy-girl workout” probably isn’t going to cut it.

Ruling out options based on practicality only whittles the list down so much. The next step is harder: figuring out what you actually want to do. For a goal as broad as “get in shape,” you can drive yourself crazy trying to find the answer. Picking a workout that ticks all the boxes is virtually impossible, because there will always be other options that seem better. At first, streaming Yoga With Adriene in my living room seemed like a cheap, enjoyable, and physically demanding option, but it lacked a social component to hold me accountable. Programs inspired by high-intensity interval training (HIIT), such as F45, promise to get people ripped—fast!—but exercising under a constant deadline is my idea of hell. I found flaws in workouts as varied as rock climbing, rugby, Orangetheory, Tabata, Aqua Tabata, and Tabata-style spinning.

Adding to the gravity of the decision is what it signals about who you are. Personal fitness is rarely personal these days. Stereotypes inform the culture of certain workouts and how their adherents are seen: Indoor rock climbing is associated with tech bros, running with intensely driven morning people, weight lifting with gym rats. Many boutique workouts come with even more distinct personality types, perpetuated by the communities they spawn in real life and on social media. Perhaps the most recognizable is the CrossFit Bro, an aggressive, bandanna-wearing jock who can’t stop talking about CrossFit. Pure Barre and SoulCycle call to mind lithe, athleisure-clad smoothie drinkers; Peloton, the kind of person who can afford a Peloton.

New identities can also form by virtue of the lifestyle shifts that these workouts can bring about. Friendships are nurtured by sweat spilled during class; exercise may even shift eating habits. For some, fitness programs become so embedded in daily life that they begin to resemble institutionalized religion. In an extreme case of life imitating exercise, a couple who met at CrossFit got married and served a paleo cake at their wedding, which was held during a CrossFit competition. Because exercise is so good at fostering community, the search for a workout is sometimes described as finding “your tribe.”

Read: The church of CrossFit

These stereotypes are not always true, of course, and they can also be aspirational. Embarrassed as I am to admit it, I would love to be a smoothie girl. But the notion of joining a tribe makes pedaling on a stationary bike or joining a rock-climbing gym feel much more consequential than the activities themselves. I was getting nowhere in my own fitness search, so I turned to experts for a reality check. Selecting from a multitude of fitness options is “quite a dilemma,” Sarah Ullrich-French, a kinesiology professor at Washington State University, told me, but the way out is to focus on what feels good, physically and psychologically. Fitness identities, however palpable, only have to mean something if you want them to. If the stereotype of the intensely focused predawn runner inspires you to get up for a morning jog, lean into it. But if it seems like an annoying downside to running, it’s okay to treat it as such. Pay attention to workouts that bring up anxiety and dread; even if you aspire towards a certain identity, “negative associations and feelings will often win over our goals and what we think we should do,” Ullrich-French said.

Part of my problem was having a goal that was too diffuse. Theoretically any workout could help me get fit, but if I refined my ambition to, say, “getting up the stairs to work without heaving,” doing so would narrow my options to exercises that optimize stamina and strength. Instead of immediately signing up for a weekly running club, start with small, attainable goals, such as taking the time to stretch each morning, Adam Makkawi, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, told me. Small goals are easier to achieve, and can help make more workout options a real possibility.

My biggest mistake was to treat choosing a workout as an intellectual endeavor, sort of like shopping for a new vacuum by reading endless online reviews. Test several options, and when you’ve found one that you like, customize its intensity and frequency until it suits you, Catherine Sabiston, a professor of kinesiology and physical education at the University of Toronto, told me. The likelihood you’ll stick to it, she added, boils down to competency—how well you feel you can accomplish a task—and enjoyment, both of which can be known only through experience.

Choice overload is real, but it can also be a powerful excuse to stay inert. Although a little self-reflection about fitness identities can be helpful, fixating on them can rule out perfectly viable options. In this spirit, I compiled a list of doable, challenging, and conceivably fun workouts to try—and even mustered up excitement for a fitness identity that brought me joy. This week, I begin my search in earnest, embarking on a virtual Lord of the Rings running journey across the rugged terrain of Middle Earth.

[ad_2]

Yasmin Tayag

Source link

January 18, 2024
Pets Really Can Be Like Human Family

[ad_1]

For the 10 years they were together, Kristen de Marco and her terrier Gracie were inseparable. De Marco brought her dog to work each day, and routinely left dinners and parties early to rush home to her; she skipped her 20th high-school reunion because Gracie was sick and none of the available hotels could accommodate a dog. De Marco’s dedication sometimes struck friends, family, and colleagues as odd. When they heard that de Marco would pay to bring Gracie on every single plane ride she took, “people were like, It’s just a dog, put her in the boarding facility,” de Marco told me. “But she was so attached to me, and I to her.” To her, Gracie was family—“my first child.”

De Marco’s feelings about Gracie put her on one side of a split in the American mind. In many ways, people have never been more openly obsessed with their pets. Companion animals now get their own home-cooked foods, their own strollers, their own memory-foam mattresses (if they don’t prefer ours); they have their own clothing lines, wellness centers, and trusts. They are trained to use toilets and driven to day cares; they feature in weddings and are written into wills. When they fall sick, they’re offered acupuncture, surgeries, chemotherapy, even organ transplants. In 2022, Americans shelled out some $136.8 billion for pet care. A recent Pew survey found that almost every pet-owning American—all 200 million of them—describes their animals as family, and more than half of pet owners say their pet is “as much a part of their family as a human member.”

At the same time, many Americans are uneasy about treating pets as bona fide family. In the very same Pew survey, the majority of respondents—including a good number of pet owners—said there is already enough emphasis on pets’ well-being in this country, even too much. The sentiment de Marco encountered—it’s just an animal—is common, and it informs both policies and attitudes. Pet restrictions on rental properties remain common; pet insurance is a rarity among employee benefits; and although most people might be sympathetic to a pet’s death, mentions of animal bereavement leave can be laughed off as a joke. When Jackie Geer Murphy, of Massachusetts, had to explain to a co-worker that she was playing sad music in her office because she’d just lost her cat to cancer, her colleague’s only response was “Whoa, okay then,” she told me.

Pets are stuck in an uncanny valley of love. We can purchase and own them, yet they are so much more to us than a material belonging: They can change us, hurt us, even compel us to put another’s needs before our own. And no rule delineates what counts in these relationships as a necessary act of love and what as a frivolous indulgence. With my own two cats, Calvin and Hobbes, I see how wildly opinions can differ. My spouse and I would both declaw ourselves before we ever stuck either cat in a wedding tux. Still, most of our friends and family think we go too far for our cats—like when I shush houseguests so that anxious Hobbes can eat in peace, or when my spouse canceled a long-awaited trip because Calvin fell ill.

The question isn’t how people feel about their pets, or how they should. Psychologically, scientifically, that answer is fairly clear: The bonds humans forge with animals can feel as strong as the ones we make with each other—even those with family, even with our kids. The question is how much validation those relationships should get.

When scientists focus on the emotional caliber of human-animal bonds, they see more similarities than differences with human-human bonds. People attach deeply to their pets, whom they may spend more time with than they do with most of the humans in their life; our animals latch tightly back onto us, learning our schedules, habits, and facial expressions, and scrunching up their own in response. My cats greet my spouse each day he returns home from work, their tails lifting with delight at his voice; when I take them to the vet, they seek comfort by pressing their face against my fingertips. “It’s similar to the way a baby forms an attachment to their mother,” says Kerri Rodriguez, a human-animal interaction researcher at the University of Arizona. Studies have also shown that, even though the effects aren’t universal, pets can be a comfort, a mood booster, a soothing social balm. “It’s this remarkable potential intervention,” with animals playing similar roles to some of the most important people in our life, Page Buck, a veterinary social worker at West Chester University, told me.

The depth of these bonds has almost certainly been magnified by human breeding choices. Once adapted to survive in the wild, under our domesticating influence the animals in our homes now survive primarily because they appeal to us. Modern dogs have stubby snouts and ultra-expressive eyes; their ears flop, their tails wag. They are, in effect, frozen in a guise of puppydom, riling our inborn drive to protect. Evolutionarily, they “are our dependents,” Janet Hoy-Gerlach, a veterinary social worker at OneHealth People-Animal Wellness Services, told me. It’s what we made them to be.

Read: Dogs’ eyes have changed since humans befriended them

Our relationships with pets even have molecular analogs to those with people: Studies have found that the same hormones, including oxytocin, soar in many people when they connect both with other humans and with animals; some of the same brain regions light up, too, when caregivers gaze at their infants and their pets. “From a psychological perspective, there is no difference in the experience of attachment,” says Jessica Oliva, a social-cognition researcher at James Cook University, in Australia.

Analogs can also be found, Oliva told me, in grief over pet loss—which numerous studies have shown can be just as severe, prolonged, and debilitating as when a close human companion dies. People feel shock, numbness, anger; sadness inundates them in waves for many months. Paul Wong, a human-animal bond researcher at the University of Hong Kong, told me that, through roughly a decade of companionship, his dog Lily “really became like my daughter,” to the point where his teenage (human) son sometimes good-naturedly groaned that his parents were putting the dog’s needs first. When Lily died after being suddenly diagnosed with lymphoma, Wong grieved the loss as deeply as he had another recent death in his family, he told me: “It was as painful as losing my grandpa.”

Few people would say to a recently bereaved widow, Are you going to get another spouse? But “when your dog dies, the first thing people say is, Are you gonna get another dog?” Marjie Alonso, an animal-behavior expert based in Massachusetts, told me. Grief over any loss can be difficult to confront, but when grieving a pet, people can find themselves that much more caught between expressing the full range of their feelings and managing them to be more socially acceptable. After Gracie, de Marco’s terrier, died, de Marco noticed just how much less sympathy her colleagues offered than when her father had died the year before. “I felt compelled to keep the truth of my grief measured,” she told me. Experiences like this are so common that many scientists consider pet loss to be a form of disenfranchised grief, which leaves people riddled with shame, confusion, and guilt. De Marco even began to question herself—“like I had almost loved her too much.”

Julie Wiest, a sociologist at West Chester University, has seen in her own life how plenty of people will “look at you like you’re crazy” any time you treat an animal like a human family member. Because her black lab Alice was terrified of the kitchen, the sounds of heaters, and going outside, Wiest and her husband fed their dog in the living room, shivered through the cold of winter, and carried her out the door when her bladder got full. Eventually, the list of Alice’s quibbles with their townhouse grew so long that they broke their lease and moved. These choices were good for Alice, so they were good for Wiest and her husband. But even Wiest’s own mother once told her she could never live in a home that so intensely revolved around a dog’s needs.

Sometimes, people’s devotion to their pets starts to pantomime human parenthood—reading them stories, building them custom car seats, or rocking them to sleep for months, all examples Laurent-Simpson has documented in her research. Self-identifying as a “dog mom” or declaring, This cat is my baby, can also come off as “a little gross,” Alonso told me—maybe because it threatens to trivialize the very real trials of human parenthood.

Read: Why so many Millennials are obsessed with dogs

Anyone who spends a substantial share of their love on an animal can trigger these complaints. But women who don’t have children—who are among the demographics who have been documented bonding most strongly to their pets—often bear the brunt of this sort of scrutiny, Andrea Laurent-Simpson, a sociologist at Southern Methodist University who studies animal-human bonds, told me. (Consider every tired “crazy cat lady” joke, and how much pressure to have kids, spoken and unspoken, women still face.) Some people—including the pope—have argued that caring for a pet can distract from human parenthood. Every one of these objections has the same undertone: Don’t you know your animal is not an actual kid?

But by and large, people who describe themselves as parents to their pets don’t seem to be asserting that their animals are kid equivalents. Caring for a pet is far less work than caring for a child, and much cheaper; nurturing an animal doesn’t involve the pain of watching a kid grow up and leave, or the pressure of teaching them moral wrong from right. Pet owners will even cite those sorts of differences as reasons that they opted not to have children. And they’ll note that their animals have a distinct value, too. Their loyalty feels unconditional; we can seek comfort from them in times of stress and suffering in ways that “we would not put on a child,” Hoy-Gerlach, the veterinary social worker, told me.

At the same time, caring for a pet does closely mirror the fundamentals of loving a child. “Are they different? Yes,” Shelly Volsche, a biocultural anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin at River Falls, told me. “But, as a broader concept, they are the same: I still want to care for something.” Pets, like children, demand and dole out care. Pets, like children, can be taught and nurtured and disciplined—in ways that also help their guardians grow. Humans are among many social species whose capacity for nurturing evolved to be flexible—beyond the creatures most directly related to us. Extending this impulse, which scientists call “alloparenting,” to the creatures whom we’ve invited into our homes and lives, Volsche told me, is quite natural.

I used to scoff at the idea of anyone calling themselves a parent to their pet. But in the seven years I’ve been with Calvin and Hobbes, my feelings have slowly changed. I’ve felt pride in teaching them and introducing them to family; I’ve cared for them when they’re in pain. Because of them, I have come to know what it means to earn a little creature’s trust. I’ll still never use the term fur babies. (As Alonso put it to me: “I don’t call my human children ‘skin babies.’”) But I’m now far more open to the idea that, in trying to capture my feelings for my cats, parent may represent the best available shorthand.

Embracing this term doesn’t need to turn into a call for more pet spas or doggie bakeries. Pet parenting simply validates this type of relationship for what it is—its own deeply meaningful form of caregiving. Plenty of people do less for their cats than I do, of course, or for their dogs than Wiest has done for hers. Some people do more and, in extreme situations, put their pet’s well-being before their own, just as they might for a kid. But any typical life with an animal will include some trials—the sleep-deprived nights of potty training a puppy, the parade of veterinary visits for a sick cat, and eventually, perhaps, a death.

What would make dealing with these challenges easier is more room for pets in the same support systems that help people care for any loved ones—more paid time off, more flexible leave policies. Several pet owners told me that a bit more grace would be nice, too: fewer eye rolls or snide comments, fewer jokes about dying alone. A little less judgment about how we spend not our money, but our love.

[ad_2]

Katherine J. Wu

Source link

January 16, 2024
Sorry, Honey, It’s Too Hot for Camp

[ad_1]

A heat dome in Texas. Wildfire smoke polluting the air in the East and Midwest. The signs are everywhere that our children’s summers will look nothing like our own. In this episode, we talk with the climate writer Emma Pattee about how hot is too hot to go outside. The research is thin and the misconceptions are many—but experts are quickly looking into nuances of how and why children suffer in the heat, so we can prepare for a future that’s already here.

Pattee grew up partly in a tent in the woods with the trees as her friends. And she expected her kids would do the same. But as a climate writer, she is realizing more quickly than the rest of us that we already need to let go of what we imagined summer might look like for our children.

“What climate change does is: It makes us realize that our blueprint is fantasy. It is no longer reality. And our children will not live the lives that we have lived. Our children are gonna live drastically different lives than we have lived.”

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts

The following is a transcript of the episode:

Emma Pattee: In the 30 minutes between when the bus drops off all the kids and the parent picks up their kid, they’re just pouring water consistently over these kids to stop them from getting heat illness.

Do I want that for my kid? These become the difficult questions.

Hanna Rosin: I’m Hanna Rosin, and this is Radio Atlantic. We have a lot of romantic ideas about childhood, and especially about what childhood should look like in the summer. Kids mucking around in ponds, finding tadpoles. Nature camp. City kids learning outdoor skills so they won’t be totally useless in the apocalypse.

But then, like a lot of romantic ideas, they sometimes run up against … reality. Which these days means it’s too hot to muck around in ponds, or even go outside sometimes. This summer: 107 in Texas. 105 in Louisiana. And a couple of summers ago, a freak heat wave so dangerous that Emma Pattee, who is a climate writer, got trapped in her house with a new baby for days. And her fellow moms in Portland basically never recovered.

Rosin: So Emma, you told me that you were on your Facebook moms’ group one day. And what happened?

Pattee: So, you know, I’m a mom. Obviously you cannot be a mom without being part of your local Facebook moms’ group. And last summer we would have these hot days, and I would just see these Facebook groups explode. You know, “How hot is too hot to have my kid outside?”

Or the summer-camp counselors saying that they’re sending the kids home because of the heat: “But I don’t think it’s that hot. You know, what do I do?” Or the opposite: “The summer camp is saying 104 is the cutoff. That’s too hot.” Moms are posting photos of their kids, you know, these sweaty little kids, like, “Is this heat stroke?”

And it just was this big moment for me; nobody knew what was happening. Nobody knew what to do. Something dangerous was occurring, and nobody had any answers.

Rosin: Well, it sounds like people didn’t know if it was dangerous or not. Like before they could even get to dangerous, they were just in information-less panic. Because people essentially have this idea in their heads: Well, it’s nice. Kids are supposed to be outside. It’s summer; they’re not in school.

And yet, there were all these indicators that that was maybe not the right thing to do. So you’re trapped between this idea you have of what kids should be doing in the summer—and your worry and panic that this is really harmful. So is that the first time you’d seen the moms’ group get activated in the summer like that?

Pattee: Yeah. And I live in the Pacific Northwest—we have a very outdoor culture. And I’ve just started seeing, year after year, that culture is changing. Now my kids get invited to indoor birthday parties. You drive by a playground in the middle of summer, and it’s empty. I started to see these kinds of indicators all around me. And it became clear to me this was a topic I was really interested in.

In places where it’s very, very hot, there are behavioral adaptations that have taken place over centuries and lifetimes. The culture itself has developed around extreme heat.

Rosin: You mentioned that you had a new baby during the heat wave. So can you say more? Like what happened?

Pattee: Yeah. I had a baby. A/C blasting. The issue was: Would the A/C be sufficient enough that I could stay home? It was 99 degrees, and the next day it was like 95 degrees, and the next day it was like 100 degrees. The next day it was like 102 degrees. And it just kinda went on like that.

Already, having a baby is a very intense experience. Big weather events can bring up really intense emotional and mental challenges. And I had this experience of having my second kid —I, as a climate writer, obviously had incredibly conflicted feelings about having a second kid.

I’m holding this tiny little baby, and I’m sitting in the dark, and all the shades are drawn and the A/C is blasting. It’s so loud. And I just sat that way all day, every day thinking, What have I done?

Rosin: Yeah. I mean, it’s been a while since I had my babies, but why can’t you go outside with the baby in the heat?

Pattee: Babies cannot regulate their own temperature, and they don’t sweat efficiently the way that older children learn to and that adults then obviously can. I could only go outside with the baby at 6 a.m., and we would come back in at 7 a.m. And we would not leave the house again until the following day at 6 a.m.

Rosin: Oh my God. That is very claustrophobic. Do you remember your state of mind during that period?

Pattee: Dark. Yeah. I mean, I think it was exacerbated by having this older kiddo who is like, I wanna go to the park. I wanna go play. And he’s in our living room, he is looking through the window, and he’s watching the neighbor kids jumping on a pogo stick.

And I’m having to explain to him, “You cannot go outside.” And he doesn’t understand. And I’m like, “It’s too hot.” Even now he does this—you know, he will open the front door and put his little hand out and say, “Mom, it’s not too hot.”

You know, I’m not gonna obviously exaggerate. People will go through a lot of worse things every single day. But it was not something I had expected. And I think that took me by surprise.

Rosin: Yeah, I mean when we had the smoke come in from the wildfires in Canada recently, we got an email from the school saying “All outside activities have been suspended.” So I guess we on the East Coast also had our first taste of Maybe our kids’ summer is not gonna look like the ones we had.

Can you tell me a little bit about how you grew up and what your relationship with nature in the woods was?

Pattee: Sure. I grew up on 40 acres in southern Oregon. I grew up deep in the woods, and for about one long summer, we lived in a big army tent on a wooden platform. And then, sort of slowly, my dad built a wood cabin. And at first there wasn’t running water. For a while there wasn’t a great working toilet.

So I spent my entire summer just kind of wandering in the woods, and I would go on hikes. I was really into tracking animals. Nature was very alive. I have this strong connection with this particular tree, and, you know, this particular field.

And I had this also this sense of like, Oh, this is my land. As everyone says in their Tinder profiles: “I love nature.” Instead of this kind of large, anonymous “nature,” it was so specific to this piece of land.

Rosin: You think of little kids having relationships with stuffed animals. Like, This tree has a personality. It knows me. I know it. Like, it was as intimate?

Pattee: Exactly. That it was like the stuffed animals of childhood.

Rosin: As you said, you had your own kids. And how did you transfer this upbringing to them?

Pattee: Now I live in Portland, in a pretty urban area. And it’s been very interesting, because I did not ever question that my kids would grow up the way that I had. I always thought, Of course they’ll wander alone in the woods. Of course they’ll run around barefoot, and we’ll go camping, and we’ll go hiking, and we’ll go swimming. But so far really that has not been the experience.

My [first] kiddo was born in 2018, and in 2020 COVID happened and we all went inside. And then we had our worst wildfire season. And I think since we have had a worse one, and I stayed inside for almost a week on end—like duct-taping the windows because the smoke was so severe.

And then we had, in 2021, the heat dome, and hundreds of people died. A heat dome is essentially when you have extremely high temperatures that do not go away—that stay consistently high. So, a key to surviving extreme heat is that it will cool off, and your body will be able to cool off before it gets hot again the next day.

And once again, children really could not leave the house at all. And then the following summer, I had a baby in a heat wave. So, you know, it’s been … not the childhood I had imagined for them.

Rosin: It’s not clear what you would’ve done without all these disasters, but it sounds like you didn’t even have the chance to ask yourself that question.

Pattee: Yeah; I sort of came to reality when I had my second child and realized, Oh, they’re gonna spend the majority of their summers indoors, and I need to prepare for that now emotionally and logistically. The question really is like: Who are we without nature? Who are my kids going to be if they do not spend their summers walking through trees?

And then I think you can expand that question to humanity at large and ask: Who are we going to be as we start to sever our relationship to the natural world?

Rosin: Okay; before we get to those big philosophical questions, I would like to take care of some of the basics. Because people are experiencing a heat dome in Texas this summer. Like: What do we actually know about “How hot is too hot for children?”

Pattee: So the data that we have shows that ER visits go up, obviously, during extreme heat. There’s certainly, you know, cognitive performance issues that come up in extreme heat. Medical professionals in emergency rooms and clinicians don’t always know what they’re looking at when they see heat illness.

It is possible that we are missing some heat deaths, because they don’t look how we expect. And I predict that over the next 10 years, our understanding and sophistication about tracking heat death is gonna change, and the numbers are gonna be higher than what we had understood.

Rosin: And so is there any data that gives us guidance on what to watch for or what to avoid?

Pattee: What I found was there’s so much that we do not know about kids and heat. And the pediatrician whom I interviewed described it as being in the dark ages, [with] what we understand about children in heat. And the main reason for that is just because it’s very hard to justify doing heat studies on children. Like, we cannot stick them in a sauna and see who comes out.

So much of our data is like being extrapolated from other areas, and that leaves a lot of room for confusion.

Rosin: Yeah. So have there been any studies done that we could look at?

Pattee: No, there have not been studies done that would give us an exact answer of how hot is too hot. I spoke with Dr. Aaron Bernstein, who’s a pediatrician and is also an expert on children and climate.

He talked about this frustrating challenge—when you know something is happening as an expert, but you cannot locate it in the data. He has gone back and looked through emergency-room visits through many, many, many heat waves. And he cannot locate what he knows is happening, which is that more kids are getting sick.

Is that because their parents aren’t taking them in? Is it because their parents aren’t identifying it as heat illness? Is it because they’re not getting that sick? And so, what’s best is for them to just stay home, and then there’s no record of it. So there is not, right now, reliable data around exactly what happens to kids during heat waves and during extreme heat. What we are starting to understand is that for a long time the medical field thought that only children who were athletes and only very ill children were sensitive to heat, and that you had to be running around outside to be sensitive to heat. That is not true.

There also was for a long time this idea that one size fits all: “If my kid did fine in 95 degrees, then your kid should do fine.” And really, what doctors are starting to understand is that there’s so much nuance in that. It’s like, What’s the humidity? Is the child walking through a city or a forest? How hydrated were they the day before? What was the temperature of their bedroom the night before? Like, that’s gonna play into if your child gets heat illness. And so, of course some children are going to be much more sensitive than others.

I didn’t realize if you were taking a stimulant, you are much more sensitive to heat illness. And you might think, well, what does that have to do with kids? But there’s millions of kids who are being medicated for ADHD taking stimulants every single day, and whose parents may not even realize that there is this sensitivity.

Rosin: Wow. I mean, listening to you, I feel simultaneously more educated and more confused. If I were a camp director, or even a parent of little children, is there any reliable guidance or line that they can stick to to make these kinds of decisions?

Pattee: Yeah; I was impressed by how the camp directors that I spoke with, even though they were not following any sort of government rule, they were all very savvy. They follow something called the heat index, and that combines the humidity level with the temperature to let you know when it’s too dangerous to be outside.

There is a lot of great knowledge about very dangerous heat: heat that’s dangerous for everyone. I think it’s the gray area where you start to get a little bit more iffy, like, “At what temperature are we gonna start seeing behavioral issues from kids?” Or, “At what temperature are 15 percent of the kids gonna be susceptible to heat illness, but the rest are gonna be fine? Is that enough to send all kids home early?” You know, these are very big logistics challenges.

Rosin: Got it. Is there a number, by the way? Like, is there a bright line at 104 degrees which is not good for anyone?

Pattee: There really is not a number. And I can see that my insistence on finding that number was speaking to my misunderstanding of this issue—that I think it would be more dangerous to have a set number.

Rosin: Oh, interesting.

Pattee: Because it would allow people to think this is a simple issue, and it’s not. What we need is more education around extreme heat and what heat illness looks like. I think that’s gonna be more important than trying to come up with a hard and fast number that will work across all situations, all ages, and all regions. Because we will never find that.

Rosin: Just as we’re talking about heat, we’re only talking about kids in nature — but actually the things I have read talk a lot about city kids. Particularly kids of color, kids who are poor, kids who don’t have air conditioning. That’s a heat issue, which is very relevant to what you talked about in terms of education and how hot is too hot.

Pattee: Yeah. Researchers have found something called an “urban heat island,” which is essentially what happens when people live in areas where there is so much asphalt, and there are no trees. And what they found is that in one city the temperature can vary as much as 20 degrees.

And so if in Portland we had a 95-degree day, there might be a child who’s being exposed to 20 degrees above that—and his parent is thinking, Well, it’s 95 degrees. Go out and play.

Rosin: So the question is: What’s the number on your street? Do you have air conditioning?

Pattee: I mean, air conditioning is a perfect example of inequality in action, because families of color are much less likely to have air conditioning. And so then you reach this double whammy—where you’re living in an area that is so much hotter than the rest of your city, and you don’t have access to air conditioning.

These are incredibly troubling things that are gonna become sort of the reality of our summers, if they aren’t already. And in these transition years is when things, I think, are gonna get pretty weird.

Rosin: You mean, climate change is already warping our reality? And our kids’ realities? But we just haven’t psychologically caught up to that yet?

Pattee: Absolutely. Yes. This is about adaptation happening in real time.

Rosin: Okay; so here you are, coming to consciousness that things are happening and things are changing. And that we’re just a little behind in adapting. And you visited a summer camp with an environmental educator. Can you tell us more about that?

Pattee: Yeah. So I had the chance to meet with Tony Deis, and he is the co-founder of Trackers. Trackers is one of the biggest summer camps in Oregon. And they had made the decision to rent out an empty department store in a large indoor shopping mall, into a summer camp haven.

Rosin: No!

Pattee: And we’re walking through the linoleum floors and the fluorescent lighting, and it’s completely empty. There’s still clothes hangers here and there, and some signage up and stuff. It was interesting, because I had gone to the shopping mall as a teenager with my friends. And so I’m walking through this empty department store, and I suddenly realized that it is the Marshall’s that I shopped at as a teenager and that I bought makeup at.

And I’m having this intense memory of being a teenager in this store. And of course, now it’s a summer camp. And he’s saying, like, “Here’s the ax-throwing range, and here’s where we’re gonna do art, and here’s the climbing wall.”

It was chilling, because I, at the same time, was looking for summer camps for my kid. So I was all too aware that I was going to be that customer who sent my kid to that camp.

Rosin: Ugh. I mean, I can just imagine the scene of like, he’s juggling and trying to make it seem fun—“And we’re gonna have art over here”—and you’re slowly dying inside.

Pattee: He’s in an impossible situation.

And I felt for him—this person who, you know, is a savvy outdoor survivalist. And I could tell that this was a very, very hard decision for him. And I respected that.

I think that he sees the future, and he’s trying to get ahead of it. And I think that it’s actually a really smart plan, which is, you know, “Let’s adapt.” Now they have this backup location—so they’re still gonna have outdoor camps, but if there’s bad wildfire smoke, their kids can go throw axes.

I mean, you got that message from your school last week saying there won’t be any outdoor activities. But what if they said, “Oh, we’re moving all of our outdoor activities into this awesome, giant play space.” Of course you would prefer that for your kid.

Rosin: I guess? Maybe?

Pattee: I think that there’s a part of us that does not wanna face what is happening in our world. And so we don’t face it by ignoring it, and we end up in much more dangerous and messy situations.

And it is incredibly painful to face it. And you get pushback from people who do not wanna face that summer is different, right? Like, if you host an indoor party for your child in August, which I have done, you will hear from everyone: “That is crazy.” And your own kid will ask you, “Why can’t I have it at the park?”

And so I think that it takes a brave person to say, This is the future. You may not like it, but it’s here, and I’m going to plan for it.

Rosin: When I read your writing about children and heat and summer camp, the first place my mind went, without even knowing you, was, Oh, Emma’s an environmentalist who’s looking for ways to make us all pay attention to climate change. Because she knows by invoking the children and worry about the children, we’ll all jump to attention.

True or false?

Pattee: I’m that mom at the playground who talks about climate change, and nobody will stand by me.

But if you talk about, you know, “My kiddo’s birthday is in August; are you guys doing indoor or outdoor parties?”—you can get into a one-hour-deep discussion that will end with climate change, that will end with a parent saying, “Man, I have an August birthday, and I always had an outdoor birthday party.” Or like, “Man, I wonder about the future.” And so I’m always looking for an inroad.

And if you meet people with the concerns of their everyday life, like summer camp, you can grab a moment of their attention.

Rosin: Oh, that’s so interesting. It’s absolutely true. You’re getting them at a place where they care and can pay attention, and where it’s really under their skin. It’s close to home. And then you can sort of tiptoe your way through the bigger issues.

You said earlier that you grew up in the woods and then moved to the city. When did you start to care about climate change as an adult?

Pattee: I mean, I’ve always been pretty aware of climate change. You know, I was a teenager in the years of the Prius. And my mom once actually backed our van down a hill trying to pick up a piece of Styrofoam and completely totaled the car, because that was her dedication to getting that Styrofoam off the road. So I grew up with An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary that Al Gore did about climate change, and this idea that we need to get off fossil fuels. And yet, climate change never really bothered me in the sense of—I never shed a tear about it. It didn’t keep me up at night. I didn’t spend a lot of my time thinking about it.

Rosin: Like it felt far away. Like it felt like a thing that, you know, you should rally—like picking up trash on the street—but not anything with emotional heft.

Pattee: Absolutely. And I think you can always compare it to your hair. Like, Do I spend more time worried about my hair or climate change? And when I look at that, nope: definitely cared more about my hair all those years. And so I think that’s always a good bar to know how much you care about current topics.

And then I had a child and I went to a moms’ group, a postpartum moms’ group. My kid was three weeks old. And a woman said, “I grew up in Miami, and I’m realizing that by the time my child is an adult, Miami will be underwater.” I was like, What is she talking about? That’s not true. These crazy moms.

And then that night I woke up and I thought, like, Is that true? And I Googled it, and I can say that within about five minutes, I found out that that was true. And that her concerns were not a mom being crazy, but were very legitimate, scientifically backed concerns.

And I felt such existential panic. I saw in this brief moment so clearly that climate change is completely real and terrifying. A very profound threat to our species. And that I had been doing lip service to it all those years.

And so I had this very profound wake up, and once you see it, you really can’t unsee it.

Rosin: Yeah; I’ve been around people who have gone through that. There’s just such profound loss in My children will not have access to the things that I had access to. Like, the continuity of generations is suddenly broken. And there’s just something really scary about that. Is that why it happened in that kind of atmosphere with other moms?

Pattee: I think there is something about having a child that can bring you very face-to-face with climate change. Because I think it gives you a context to think about the future. Like before I had a kid, I never thought about 30 years from now. What? Who even knows what’s gonna happen? That’s bizarre.

And as soon as you have a kid, you think, I wonder what the world’s gonna be like in 30 years. I wonder what my kid’s gonna be doing. I wonder where my kid’s gonna live. You have this urgency to thinking about the future, but you also have this blueprint for the future.

And I think what climate change does is: It makes us realize that our blueprint is fantasy. It is no longer reality. And our children will not live the lives that we have lived. Our children are gonna live drastically different lives than we have lived. And having a child can put that into sharp focus.

Rosin: Maybe we should end on the coyote story? I’m not sure if it will inspire people or depress them. For me it did both. So, can you retell the story that the camp director told you as you were walking around that fluorescent-lighting place that used to be a Marshall’s?

Pattee: So, you know, toward the end of our tour, I kinda sheepishly asked him, “You’re like this total outdoors guy. Isn’t there a part of you that kind of flinches at the idea of keeping kids inside this fluorescent-lit, air-conditioned indoor shopping mall?” And he said that at first he was like, Oh, no way. A team member had suggested it.

And he said, “There’s just no way that will ever happen.” And then he kind of came around to the idea, because of all this severe weather. And then he’d had this realization, which is that a coyote doesn’t look at things as “nature” or “not nature.” Right? A coyote looks at everything as nature. And so what he was gonna do is just be that coyote, and look at the Marshall’s as nature.

Rosin: Wow. It’s a really calming and beautiful idea. It has a lot of resignation in it, but it also has a little bit of optimism in it. And I don’t know how to feel about it. Have you thought about it more since he said that?

Pattee: Yeah. I thought it was beautiful. I instantly thought He’s right—but standing in that Marshall’s, you know, every cell in my body was saying “No.”

Rosin: Of course. I bet. I mean, the big, big philosophical question that’s in your head was, Who are we without nature? And so hearing that coyote story, I feel like that is an answer to that question. Like possibly, we’re people who live in a different kind of nature, or we have redefined nature.

And I wonder about these camps, thinking about adaptation, if you’ve landed anywhere with a “Who are we without nature?” question.

Pattee: You know, as part of my journey through climate grief to some kind of reconciliation, I think I have had to become very resigned and excited about the concept of adaptation and evolution. And to see that things that I thought of as forever—things like nature, things like walking in the woods—that I cannot really see as separate from my identity.

To see that those are just temporary states of being, and that things that I think of as absolute are not absolute, and to try to find some excitement about what the future might hold, even if it looks nothing like anything I’ve ever known.

Rosin: I love it, because I feel like it takes something natural, which is this idea of the cycles of nature. Like, everything changes; everything becomes other things. We’re obviously mutually inhabiting a very optimistic space right now, but it takes that “cycles of nature” idea and it rolls with it. So I feel like that’s maybe the best choice we have right now.

Pattee: Yeah. I mean it is, right? Like, I was thinking today about how we all think of adaptation as this kind of sexy thing some tech bro is gonna create for us. Like, This was the past, and now we’ve adapted, and this is the future. And they unveil whatever it is: the AI garden.

But this is adaptation. Adaptation is a summer-camp headquarters in Marshall’s. Adaptation is moms on a Facebook group saying, “Is it too hot to go to the park?” Like, it’s messy. It’s brutal. And we’re in it.

Rosin: Yeah. And it’s done day to day. And we’re in it, exactly. We’re in it.

[ad_2]

Hanna Rosin

Source link

July 6, 2023