Testimony: “I have two bedside tables to express my two facets”
updated the 14 July 2015 à 18:31If you tend to alternative between two resting places, the type of bedside table may offer a different meaning too.
Trish, 44, four children, for whom she shares custody.
“For three years, I have been living either in my workshop – where I realise my culinary projects – or my house, not far from my children’s school. I tend to be attached to the places in which I stay but I hate being too settled. Also, I dislike cooking styles that give lessons; I prefer to present ideas and desires.
These two places express my two facets: as a mum and an active woman. In my house, my room in the attic is a haven of peace with linen sheets and a silk bedspread, but without a bedside table! Instead, I have a very soft ‘night carpet’, on which I display Irish classics that I enjoy reading again and again. It also houses one of my favourite culinary books written by my favourite chef! In one corner of my room, I store cookbooks, starfish drawings offered by my daughter for Mother’s Day and jewellery boxes. My workshop, which is in an alcove, is more open to the city; more sensual. On my bedside table sits my iPhone, The Line of Beauty – the novel of an Irishman who grew up, like me, in Belfast during the Thatcher years. There is also a candle, which I light if I am not alone. Sometimes, there is also a bowl of fresh figs, for my raging hunger pangs! But I avoid overloading. I need to move objects and ideas to feed me…”
Psychotherapist’s opinion:
Trish lives in two places; she alternates, a little like her children! Two places represent two facets of her personality. I shall add a third facet: the one who is fed and the one who wants to be hungry! In her house, gastronomy connects her to her daughter, and memories (the starfish). In her workshop, – the candle – a very romantic and sensual object – is there to illuminate the body of her lover! Trish, on hold between these two places, wants something that moves on her and beside herself. She needs independence and freedom.
Isabelle Soing
Read more in our Bedside table series:
Testimony: “It is a gift from my father”
Testimony: “It is one of the rare places that is personal to me.”
Testimony: “It is invaded by novels that make me laugh.”
Is the bedside table a reflection of your lives?
