I am visiting my friend Suzanne who lives in heaven. Not
harps-and-angels-heaven, earth-heaven. She has created in her home tucked away
in the Sunset Hills of West Hollywood something of a cross between Eden and
Fantasyland. Her back patio and garden is a colorful jungle of everything that
blooms. Oranges hang from tree branches. The pool reflects the Spanish tiles
and the bright sky.

Inside is all color and whimsy. Her dining room is
sponge-painted a wonderful blue and a wonderful peach, with stenciling along
the ceiling line and a sunny cream-colored ceiling with an antique chandelier of brass and stained glass growing out of a proudly painted flower. The furniture has accents of red and blue and more flowers. The floor is brick. When I’m
here, I have architectural contentment.

My talents do not include design. I fail at it quite a bit and succeed in pieces here and there. I’ve made the smaller
bathroom in our new condo an aspirational mélange of bells and crystals and
fanciful things (a yellow cab, a pig that flies) hung from the ceiling. And
I’ve outfitted the guest bedroom, in our feng shui prosperity area, with a
purple wall and window shade and an antique red Chinese chest with a secret
drawer. It’s a start. Being at Suzanne’s place makes me want to keep going.

My husband tells me that I’m impossible to please in terms
of interiors, and I’ve finally figured out why: I know what I delight in when I see
it and feel it, but I can’t describe what it looks like to another person.
That’s because it is a feeling as much as a look. I know it has to do with
colors that resemble the contents of a case at Baskin-Robbins, and things that
were made by somebody’s hands or so long ago that they’ve developed lives and
stories. It’s about coziness and feeling safely wrapped up in the books and
objects and enchantments that live in the room.

Right now I’m wrapped up in work, focusing on my two new
books as if they were nursing infants demanding all my time and attention. But
soon they’ll need to fly on their own and I can turn more of my thoughts toward
home—softer lights in the bathrooms, paint that could pass for pistachio and
butter pecan. Especially in times like these when the news from the outer world
is more startling by the day, the solace of home is all the
more necessary. To that end, tomorrow’s Tuesday’s Top 10 post will be simple feng
shui suggestions from a master of that trade, Liz Brown. And if you’d like to
read more of what I think on this subject overall, my book Shelter for the Spirit:
Create Your Own Haven in a Hectic World, is
still extant in its twelfth year. It’s about making your home nurture your
soul, and I can’t think of a more basic human yearning than that.

Oversight: When I was waxing poetic about the wonderful restaurants that provided delicious cuisine for the press party the other night for The Love-Powered Diet, I left out one of the very yummiest, Franchia Tea House. It’s an exquisite oasis of calm in Murray Hill — 12 Park Ave. between 34th & 35th. One problem with dining out in Manhattan is that so many restaurants are noisy. This one is like a monastic garden. And the Asian fusion, vegan fare — with an extraordinary tea service besides — is an experience not to be missed.