Becoming | 4: The Karaoke Light and the Meditation Room
But there I was, windows cracked, minding my business, when Keith Sweat's "Twisted" came pouring out of the car next to me.
A red light doesn't usually change your day.
But there I was, windows cracked, minding my business, when Keith Sweat's "Twisted" came pouring out of the car next to me.
I rolled closer. There's a nod you give another human when you recognize the song, and this kid gave it right back. So I did what any self-respecting child of 90s R&B would do. I started singing.
He looked over, surprised for about half a second, then he was in it with me. Full lyrics. Two strangers at a red light, harmonizing about a situationship… on a random Tuesday.
Light turned green. We laughed, went our separate ways.
Ninety seconds, maybe less. And it changed the whole shape of my day. I was looser after that. Sillier. More willing to be goofy out loud. One dumb impromptu duet did that.
Funny thing about connection: it doesn't care what room you find it in. Sometimes it's a stranger at a red light. Sometimes it's a room you build yourself.
Erik and I had been talking for weeks about a space I couldn't quite name. I kept circling it with words that didn't fit. Calm. Recenter. My own thing. I was spitting out every self-help vernacular I could think of, like if I just found the right buzzword Erik would suddenly understand what was in my head. He did not. Eventually I gave up on the vocabulary entirely and just started describing feelings instead.
One part Stevie Nicks. One part outdoors, like the room had left a door open. I wanted a nook, something that held me, but not a room that closed in on me either. Spacious, but not empty. A place for all my weird stuff, and still room for whatever hadn't found me yet.
I told Erik I wanted it to be a place of opposites. A place that could hold multitudes. Somewhere for contemplation and for rest, which are not the same thing, but I wanted both anyway.
I confused him thoroughly.
We started sketching regardless. First were mood boards, then an amateur's fumble through SketchUp. First layer was furnishings. Second was texture. Third was greenery, and that's when it stopped being a plan and turned into an actual room.
The first thing that actually landed was the pair of chairs tucked in their own corner, both draped in furs and sheepskins until they looked like something out of a Fleetwood Mac fever dream. Above them hangs a piece of art that stops people mid-sentence every time. Bold, strange, a little unsettling, exactly the kind of thing that makes a room feel awake instead of decorated. That's the Stevie Nicks half. Moody, a little theatrical, candles lit at the floor like the room is mid-ritual even when nobody's home.
The other half is the chaise by the window. Cream, soft, the kind of chair that basically tells you to sit down before you've decided to. Next to it is a monstera that has clearly claimed the corner as its own, leaves the size of dinner plates at this point. A couple of little stone and wood mushrooms sit at its base like they just grew there overnight. This is the outdoors sneaking in. Green and a little wild against all that clean linen.
Between the two lives an antique glass-front cabinet, dark wood, hand-forged hinges, the kind of piece that looks like it has secrets. Open it and it's part apothecary, part cabinet of curiosities. Mortar and pestle, small glass vials, driftwood and raw mineral chunks stacked on top like an offering. A big green glass jug stands guard next to it, catching light differently depending on the hour.
Above it all, five floating shelves climb the wall like a staircase for my strangest belongings. Crystals, dried greenery, a small taxidermy-style black bird perched at the very top like it's supervising. His name is Ezechiel. Warm amber light glows underneath every shelf, so even in the dark the whole wall hums instead of disappearing. An oval mirror sits below the shelves, framed like something you'd find in your grandmother's hallway, and under that, a live-edge wood alter holds candles and a small ceramic bowl.
Nothing in the room matches in the traditional sense. It all just belongs together, the same way seemingly unrelated moments in a day end up belonging to the same story.
When it finally came together, that's when I understood what I'd actually been asking for the whole time. Not a meditation room. A held space. Somewhere built for opposites to sit next to each other without canceling each other out. Soft and grounded. Full and still spacious. Mine, and still leaving room for something else to show up.
Here's the full circle I promised.
The karaoke stranger and the meditation room are doing the same job. One is connection out. The other is connection in.
One happens in ninety seconds with a total stranger and the other took months of talking in circles with Erik, a sketch pad full of bad sketches, and three layers of furnishings before it finally felt like something. Different scenarios. Different speeds. Different rooms. Same need underneath.
We talk about recharging like it's one setting. It isn't. Some days what you need is loud and unplanned and gone before the light turns green. Some days what you need is quiet and slow-built and still sitting there waiting for you every single morning. I used to think I had to pick a lane. Either I'm the person who sings with strangers or I'm the person who needs a whole room just to hear herself think.
Turns out I'm both. Turns out most people are. Turns out we are multitudes.
The trick isn't choosing. It's making room for the version of you that needs the duet and the version that needs the nook, and not feeling like a fraud for wanting both in the same week. Sometimes the same day.
I didn't go looking for either one. They just showed up. One at a red light, one at a kitchen table with Erik and a sketch pad. That's usually how the good stuff finds you. It doesn't knock first. It just shows up and begs you to sing.
Next time: the one object I nearly left out—and why it became the most meaningful piece in the room.
