SOME LACE AND PAPER FLOWERS
When I got divorced, over five years ago now, I bought a canopy for my bed. It was a simple tent of Indian sari silk that I attached to the ceiling with a few adhesive hooks that would later prove impossible to detach when I moved out. I strung fairy lights on the inside of the canopy, and I bought a snake plant to place next to the bed, hoping that I’d finally keep something green alive. (I did. It’s still alive.) Basically, I was a 41 year-old with a college dorm room. My canopy was one of the few things that made me happy at that time (2020!) and while my kids were surprised to find Mom sleeping in a fortress of fabric that blocked the TV— blocked everything— they soon liked to climb in there too.
Like basically every Gen X girl, I’d always wanted a canopy bed. I’d page through the JCPenney catalog, deciding which one I’d choose in the nonexistent event that I’d be allowed to get one. Some of the styles were classic and frilly, some were babyish, covered in polka dots or licensed characters. My childhood friend Becky had the ultimate canopy bed, the non plus ultra feminine sleep shelter—a fantasy of scratchy pink polyester, fiberfill quilting and ruffled pillow shams. It was understood that such a bed was for girlhood; you had one chance to sleep in one, one short stage of life in which that bed would be appropriate, and that’s it. I didn’t know any adult women with canopy beds, just like I didn’t know any adult men with race car beds.
I’m reminiscing about my adult divorce canopy, because this week, I bought some colored LEDs for my shower. A silly purchase, very landfill-coded, I know. Even my kids thought it was goofy and declined a set for their own shower. (When a 9 year-old thinks you’re being frivolous, you’ve got to accept it as truth.) I’ve been decorating my shower for a couple of weeks now. I hung some fake ivy in there and put down a pebble-printed mat that reminds me of a water park, and I installed shelves so all my scrubs and washes are within arm’s reach. It’s a tiny shower that hasn’t been updated since 1991, but I am turning it into a little spa where rainbow lights slowly morph and the shower curtain hooks are miniature toadstools. I only spend about 10 minutes a day in there, but it’s my 10 minutes, my bare-ass 10 minutes.
I don’t know what it is about being single—which I am now, and have been for a minute now— that compels me to go full goblincore, but it seems to be my thing. I get some space to myself and I regress to fairies and rainbows. I realize that there was never a reason to believe that the canopy beds in the catalog had an upper age limit, that I had to hurry up and be a girl before I had to share my space with more serious things. Come to think of it, I did know an adult with a canopy bed. My ballet teacher. I was never supposed to see her bedroom. I took a wrong turn leaving the studio and saw this secret, romantic part of her that made perfect sense.
I have sometimes wondered if I cling to girlish (silly?) things so fiercely because I have three sons and the testosterone index in this house is rising daily. In a few months, I will be living with two teenage boys and one coming up behind. The air in here is changing. I welcome our new season of Axe body spray and piles of giant Nikes by the door, but it also reminds me to keep my canopy sturdy and straight, I need the sanctuary. And I appreciate it more than I ever have.