My Boudoir

It’s pink, and it’s mine. Credit: Donna Ladd

With all the talk of man caves these days, it can be easy to forget that it was women who had to fight for the right to have a “Room of One’s Own,” as Virginia Woolf declared it.

In my home, we have his, hers and ours. Mine is my girly retreat with a closet and a standup wardrobe. During the week, the room is more like a walk-in closet as I put together outfits and rejected scarves, shoes, etc.—I’m rather Jackson Pollock when it comes to assembling my outfits.

Much of my wall space holds hats and jewelry on hooks.

But it’s also a space where I can stretch out my mat and do yoga (my favorite are nighttime restorative poses). It has a small altar with things I love—from a Buddha statue to an Ethiopian cross to a cotton boll (homage to my cotton-picker parents). It has a small desk where I seldom work unless I’m hiding out to finish a big story. This space is more about correspondence and domestic creativity.

I have a bookcase of spiritual books and writing memoirs (such as those by Marianne Williamson and Anne Lamott), and way too many magazines, which I always clip and file before recycling.

My favorite part of the boudoir, though, is that it a girl’s room through and through. I have lots of pinks and reds and browns in there (and a bit of lime green) and even have a large pink bookcase, which makes my girly heart happy every time I look at it.

It’s a room filled with ribbons, and lavender, and candles, and family photos, and dried roses from Todd. It’s a room that, as any good boudoir should, makes my heart sing. And get this: Because I started calling mine the boudoir, Todd started calling his the dude-oir—and he actually sings in his sometimes. But that’s another story.