Anatomy of a Shelf
Do you have a space or object at home that best reflects you?
One of the questions I ask people in my Life at Home With… series is this:
Tell me about a space or object in your home that best reflects your identity.
It’s a question driven from a simple insight, that as many as four in ten people don’t believe their home reflects their identity. The flip side to that position—the reason it’s such an important data point—is that people who believe their home reflects their identity are twice as likely to see home as a source of good mental health and wellbeing.
So I turned the question on myself recently, as I was busy decluttering and cleaning with the kind of frenzied energy of a woman who is trying to wrestle control over something in her life which is bigger than housework but (as yet) impossible to pin down. I cycle through this feeling roughly twice a year, when I can’t work out if I need a new project, a new job, a new home, a new life… or just eight hours of uninterrupted sleep and a day on the sofa with a book. Getting my literal house in order helps direct some of the restlessness, and so I scrub the windows and toss old magazines and replace the tattered bathmat.
In this process, I got to thinking about the spaces in my home that best reflect who I am. When my husband and I bought our apartment in 2016, we made all the big interiors and purchasing decisions together seeing as we had only ever previously lived in fully-furnished rentals. But in the years that followed, as we welcomed two children to the fold, I’d wager that around 95% of the items we brought back were ushered in by me. He’d likely protest the number, but aside from books, groceries and clothes for himself, I can’t remember the last time my husband brought home something he found, made or bought. I, on the other hand, occupy a perpetually active state of foraging like a deranged magpie—crockery, textiles, picture frames, ornaments, greenery… not to mention the rotation of kids’ clothes, toys, books and stuffies. I am constantly feathering the nest that we all call home.
So when I look around my home, I see myself everywhere. I can tell you where I bought the hand towels, how I made the wonky vase, and why I put that picture just-so. But I also see my family, because so many of these things are love-worn from our domestic life or bring to mind a particular moment or holiday together. I can’t quite unpick where I end and my home begins. I realise, from the years of research I’ve been steeped in, that this is an extraordinary gift.
Back to that question, though. Is there a particular space or object amongst all the spaces and objects in my home, which best reflects me? On this matter, my eyes were drawn to a small shelf on our bookcase. It’s the only shelf without any books on it, which, as a family of relentless analogue readers, is a counter-intuitive place to locate me. But I thought I’d share it with you, and—by extension—share more of myself.
Let’s take it from the front:
The black and white photograph in the little gold frame is a recent addition. My daughter and I posed for it in a photobooth at my cousin’s wedding in April. When I look at it, I remember Órla shrieking with glee every time I spun her around on the dance floor, well past her bedtime. I remember being with all my family back in the UK, which we rarely get to do. I remember doing my hair and makeup and wearing a top that my father said made me look like a cloud, and how happy we all were to be away from the grind of work and laundry and dishes for 48 hours. I love my daughter’s goofy little grin and slightly messy hair and I think about how quickly the tyranny of selfies and AI and social media content will iron out her beautiful imperfections. I want to hold her here forever.
Left of the photo is a bowl of pinecones. The bowl is modelled on the prickled case of a horse-chestnut, and I picked it up in Lisbon when I was travelling alone for work. It’s a heritage ceramic style famous in Portugal, and I remember being a bit coy about it when I brought it back because I was worried that my husband wouldn’t like it. The pinecones come from different places around the world where we’ve holidayed or spent time—Italy, Greece, California, London. I recently added one from Dragør, a historic fishing village just south of Copenhagen, where we spent a slow Saturday watching the boats in the harbour with the kids, and eating fish and chips and ice cream. I didn’t plan to be a pinecone collector, but I love that they come from all over the world even though you wouldn’t know it from looking at them.
Behind the bowl is a dark brown stoneware bottle with the name R.Whites and the company logo imprinted on it. Once upon a time ago, this piece of stoneware would have contained ginger beer and it probably dates from the 1860s. I found it in a junk shop in London, 15 or so years ago. It’s battered and chipped, and likely a collector’s item for the right kind of enthusiast but I keep it for my own sentimental reasons. It feels like an archive piece from a city I used to call home. I like to think about what London would have been like in 1860, when someone popped the lid off and poured themselves a cold one. I love that the history of a place like London can be captured in something considered throwaway.
Next to the stoneware is the letter K. It’s funny how we feel so proprietary about our initials, even though we share them with millions of other people. I’ve always liked the fact my name starts with a K—it’s a dynamic letter, arms and legs akimbo, like it’s dancing. I got this letter block to go on the first desk I ever bought for myself, which is currently languishing in our rat-infested basement. There is simply no room for the desk in the apartment today—two kids and all their paraphernalia edged it out—but I keep the K handy as a reminder that good writing can—and does—happen anywhere.
Just behind the photo are some pressed flowers in a frame. The flowers were picked from some of the many beautiful bouquets we were sent when we lost our baby in a late miscarriage in 2022. Pregnancy loss is a uniquely complex experience to process, and not everyone wants to memorialise it, but I felt the need to capture this awful time in a tender way. Dried flowers felt right—the outline of something that was once alive and budding. I remember getting all my hair cut off a week after the loss (itself an inexplicable grief ritual) and my husband running late to pick me up because another bouquet had arrived and he had run out of vases to put it in. Just the fact of this alone cracked open something as he thought about the people who showed up in all kinds of loving ways when we were poleaxed by grief.
Behind the pressed flowers is a print of two penguins. My beloved and deeply eccentric uncle gave it to me the last time I saw him in London. Penguins have long been a totemic animal for me, and my uncle had remembered this glimmer of a fact for long enough to save a print that he’d chanced upon until we could get together again. When I think of my uncle, I think of all the one-of-a-kind board games he found in remainder stores that we played together for hours and hours in his tiny terraced house, when I was a kid. I think of the bonkers dogs and cats he continues to adopt, through choice or circumstance, that always have some major health complaint or psychological problem. I think of him in his glorious white tuxedo at my wedding in Hoxton—the furthest he had travelled from his home in many years, despite only living a few boroughs away. I think of him laughing with my mother, and seeing the McCrory predisposition for a great story, well-told. I think about when I’ll see him next, and the fact I should probably book that ticket back sooner rather than later.
In front of the print are two tall vases. They were a housewarming gift from Nina and Erik, who were also the first friends we made in Copenhagen when we moved here almost ten years ago. We were set up on a friendship blind date by a mutual connection, and before the brunch was over we’d agreed we’d all go and get our swimming costumes and head to the canal for beers and a dip. When I look at the vases, I remember the feeling of getting the keys to our own home and what this gift represented. But beyond that, I get a full body sense-memory of that earlier time—our first summer in Copenhagen, making new friends, the lightness and ease of being here and how excited we were about this new chapter in our lives. It makes me appreciate what it took to take this step, and the many, many ways our choice to move overseas has paid off a decade later.
All that, on a single shelf. My shelfie, as the parlance goes. What a gift to see so much of myself, and my life, in the place I call home.
What about you? Do you have a space, place or object in your home that best reflects who you are? Why not share it in the comments below—I’d love to see and hear about it!
I absolutely loved reading this ❤️
Your story made me think of all the times that my Friends went to visit on my old apartement and said: “It feels like you”. I think of that as one of the best compliments! To get that your space be perceived as a clear reflection of you —with the good, the darkness, the memories and accidental collections. And that your loved ones feel welcome in there.