My Sister Calls My Bedroom Grandma-Chic Marah Hoffman

Marah Hoffman

Needlepoints hang in ornate frames above my light switch. Like their lost makers, meticulous grandmothers with soft hands, they hang above the clouds. I am their portal to waking.

Here is a room of vintage bonnets and just the right amount of moss on copper. I sidestep the idea that death filled the shelves of Goodwill with my beloved decor. Instead, I consider myself a galvanizing force—my craft a scythe with a rewind button. I will learn to crochet. Read the essays of Michael De Montagne and the cursive notes in the margins. Will pin postcards and portraits to my corkboard.

Others ask, “Don’t you want the space to feel yours?” But what could be more mine than a fellow human’s handiwork, than the art I aspire to emulate?

When they ask what I do, I will say, “Make habit of touching light in an old room.”