Remember Martin Crane’s well- broken-in armchair at the center of Dr. Frasier Crane’s carefully designed living room?
It was a chair you’d expect to find in the den of a suburban split-level, not in a swank, high-rise apartment. But it represented comfort and familiarity for a down-to-earth guy living with his nose-in-the-air son.
That makes perfect sense to Esther Sternberg, a doctor who specializes in the science of mind-body interaction. Her new book, “Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being,” explores the connection between environment and emotion, including how we decorate our homes.
Sternberg knows — as did television’s Martin Crane — that familiar “things” from the past provide comfort and security in the present. They can be touchstones — even amid refined, but perhaps impersonal, design.
In fact, according to Sternberg’s research, a comforting environment can even aid physical healing.
She inadvertently experienced the phenomenon in her own Maryland home. In 1997, while her mother was dying of breast cancer, Sternberg, who is a trained rheumatologist, developed inflammatory arthritis. After her mother died, she furnished her home with “my mother’s old furniture and my grandmother’s teacups,” she says. “When I drink out of one of those teacups, I am back in her kitchen.”
It’s a common experience — keeping old, familiar, often inherited belongings simply because parting with them just seems wrong.
Hollis Brooks can relate. She divides her time between homes in Boulder and Steamboat Springs.
“There is a pretty lamp in my life that I inherited from my mother,” the writer says. “It was her favorite lamp, and I have recollections of her standing by it, admiring it and saying aloud to me, ‘Oh! This little lamp gives me pleasure every time I look at it.’ “
“It has a porcelain base, painted with a peacock. It is colorful and somewhat distinctive, but not the sort of decorative item that brings the word ‘wow!’ to mind. After my parents died, the lamp came my way, making the journey from Connecticut to Colorado. I have placed it by my bedside, so it’s the last thing I see before I close my eyes to sleep.
“I have moved seven times since my mother’s death, and wherever I live, the lamp is the first item I place in my new nest. What makes the lamp extra-special: there is a tiny scrap of paper nestled in the lamp underside. It reads, in my mom’s distinctive handwriting: ‘For Hol. xx.’ Sometimes when I need my spirits lifted, I sit by the lamp and turn it upside down to read the note. And I always feel my own light go on again.”
For Carol Grever of Boulder, it’s a baby quilt started by a favorite aunt from scraps from her husband’s blue work shirts.
“She was in poor health at the time and finished piecing the quilt-top, but was unable to complete it. She gave the unfinished quilt-top to my mother, who secretly finished it and gave it to me for my firstborn’s bed.
“Elene’s quilt kept both of my children cozy until they outgrew their baby beds. When my sons were grown, I hung the little quilt on the wall, the decoration reminding me of my aunt, my devoted mother and my two children. It’s old and marked with the rust-like spots of aging fabric, but I still love that quilt.”
Ina Russell, also of Boulder, treasures a rocking chair that goes back even further.
“It was my grandmother’s wedding present,” she says. “She was an antebellum, Victorian-minded Southern young bride in Atlanta who married around 1906 when she received that chair.
“For me, the chair has enormous complex meanings — the Southern-lady heritage I escaped when I came to Colorado close to 40 years ago, and at the same time, a tenderness for the Southern-lady heritage of the women who preceded me.”
Sternberg was writing her book and settling into her new home in Maryland when her Greek neighbors came to welcome her. “We always wanted a writer to stay in our cottage on Crete,” they said.
She later accepted their hospitality and went with her new friends “to that wonderful, magical place,” a house that overlooks the ruins of a temple dedicated to Asclepios, the ancient Greek god of medicine and healing. She explored the peaceful, soothing site, got plenty of exercise walking around the area, and ate a healthy diet during the trip. As a result, her inflammatory arthritis went away.
“You don’t have to go to Greece to heal,” she says, “but you can create a place of healing for yourself.”
A favorite chair, a set of teacups, a lamp or any other treasure that takes a person back to a place and time of comfort can do that — regardless of whether or not it fits into a decorative scheme.
WEEKEND PROJECT
Coddle an old quilt
Deborah Roberts is a quilt historian and appraiser certified by the American Quilters’ Society. Because the way people care for quilts today determines whether these heirlooms will be around tomorrow, Roberts compiled these quilt-care tips for , an online quilting-information clearinghouse. “Proper care of your quilt is important whether they are works of art or everyday quilts,” she writes. “It is important to remember that the quilts left to us and those that we pass on are pieces of (people’s) lives.”
Label and photograph your quilt to document its history. The label should at least include your name, the maker’s name, where the quilt was made, the date it was made and any special handling instructions.
To display your quilt on a wooden quilt rack, be sure the wood has at least one coat of polyurethane varnish or is covered with a soft, light-colored cloth or towel. This prevents the quilt from coming into contact with acid in the wood.
Hanging quilts need to have a full-length sleeve at one end. If your quilt has an overall pattern and can be hung in any direction, you may want to place a sleeve on another end, as well, so it can be rotated.
Never display a quilt in direct sunlight; all fluorescent lighting should be filtered. Incandescent lights should be at least 10 to 12 feet from the quilt. Avoid hanging a quilt in the kitchen or near a bathroom where it will be exposed to harmful moisture.
The best way to store a quilt is flat in a moisture-free, low-light environment. If you need to fold your quilt, put rolls of batting or acid-free tissue paper in the folds. Remember that acid-free paper needs to be replaced annually.
Another way you can store your quilt is to roll it up and tie it using an old cotton sheet or a piece of washed muslin.
If you store your quilt in a chest or trunk, be sure that it is in a cotton bag and that it does not come into contact with the wood. To protect it from bugs, buy an herb called artemisia, place it in a cloth bag and hang it in the chest. Do not allow the bag to come into contact with the quilt. Avoid mothballs; they can cause damage.
Cleaning or washing of a quilt should be kept to a minimum.
To freshen it and get surface dirt off of a quilt, spread a sheet on your floor. Put your quilt on the sheet and use something to weigh it down. Gently vacuum the quilt. When you finish the top, repeat on the bottom.
Dry-cleaning can ruin a quilt, especially an old one. If you do have a quilt dry-cleaned, use a cleaner that specializes in quilts.
Although there are several commercial products available to wet-wash quilts, Roberts advises against home washing. If you do choose to wash your own quilt, be sure to use a non-ionic detergent. Never wet-wash a quilt unless the fabric is strong and colorfast.
Elana Ashanti Jefferson
