Musings on a Backyard Pizza Oven

Objects are often thornier than they appear.

Yesterday, while out buying toilet paper, I impulse purchased an overpriced shelter magazine. It was one of those glossy special issues that costs as much as a paperback book and haunts the newsstand for the better part of a season. I reached for it the way one might a fantasy novel — seeking an escape that bears no resemblance to my current reality.

And oh, what a departure it was.

I entered a world of golden faucets and Italian marble and a custom outdoor fireplace that doubles as a pizza oven. There were windows so expansive they could’ve worked in an airport terminal and the kind of art that warrants its own security system. Each featured home superseded the realm of houses to become something else entirely. A chateau. A modern art museum. A rambling hillside haven resembling the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

In the end, I would’ve fared better had I read a book about dragons.

Instead, I began questioning all my life choices. None of my fixtures are gold. Some of my (regular-sized) windows are perpetually foggy and one doesn’t close all the way. Surely, I thought, I must’ve screwed up somewhere. I took a wrong left turn on the way to the villa and wound up here instead.

A different, equally aspirational pizza oven.

As I thumbed through page after glossy page, I was transported back to my twenties, when big dreams (and bad feelings) reigned supreme. Back then, I was a voracious consumer of shelter mags, which made the world seem like a living catalog, a choose-your-own-adventure strewn across blogs and Pinterest and print media. “Choose a job, choose a home, choose a color palette!” they shouted. As though living well was as simple as following a recipe.

I consulted images as though they were blueprints, captions as though they were gospel. Without realizing it, I spent years of my life focused — influenced, if you will — on the way life looked rather than the way it felt. Because when it comes to glimpsing life from the outside, we can only ever know how something looks. How it feels is the stuff of fiction.

And now, please buckle up for the inevitable Sex and the City reference. (Can you guess where this is going?)

Whenever I wander too far into lifestyle land, I’m reminded of the episode where Charlotte and Trey’s marriage is falling apart just as House & Garden magazine is set to photograph their palatial Upper East Side home. In the hours leading up to the shoot, the couple decides to end it. Trey announces his plans to move out. But they still don their freshly starched outfits and pose for a portrait together, one final vestige of their happiness charade.

This dog has a really nice pizza oven.

The thing is, I should know better! I’ve spent years working in editorial and had former apartments featured in a handful of places, and can tell you exactly how it goes.

A space is never as clean as it appears, nor is it ever as bright. There is usually a dingy bathroom, a closet full of clutter, a screaming child, or a tangle of hideous cables just outside the frame. And that’s just the physical stuff. The emotional stuff is a whole different story.

Four abodes ago, my apartment was photographed on the heels of a breakup, which meant the bulk of the nicer furniture (his) left the space soon after. To make matters worse, my computer decided to up and die during the shoot, never to be revived again. As soon as we wrapped, I ran to the store to buy a new one, maxing out my credit card in the process.

My home looked lovely — and it was. But to look at those photos, you’d never know how that day felt. What they showed was the truth… it just wasn’t all of it.

Stanley Tucci loves his backyard pizza oven.

Over the last couple years, as in-person experiences grew scarce and our lives shifted ever more online, it sometimes felt like images held even more power. So much now takes place on camera. Even people we know — people who would happily divulge the truths of their lives over coffee — are often reduced to frames. Two-dimensional. Thriving.

But as I try to remind myself, on today and all days, everyone has challenges.

Put another way, you can be sad with a backyard pizza oven that doubles as an architectural masterpiece. A pizza oven will not protect you from failure, regret, or heartbreak. What it will do is make pizza. But so will a lot of places.

And on that note, I’m going to order one.*

(*A pizza, not an oven.)

Card of the Week

Here is this week’s card for the collective, as well as some thoughts to carry into the days ahead. As most modern readers will tell you, the tarot is not about fortunetelling, nor is it about neat, definitive answers. The cards are simply one path to reflection, a way of better knowing ourselves and others through universal themes. If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

Featuring The Serpentfire Tarot by Devany Amber Wolfe

What were some of your earliest impressions of adulthood? Do you remember how it seemed, versus the reality of actually being a grown-up?

To me, adulthood seemed like a land peppered with fine print type, uncomfortable footwear, and complaints about varying levels of exhaustion. But it more than made up for that with its resemblance to a hedonistic free-for-all. Adults could stay up late watching any show they wanted, eating any snack they pleased. They could drive anywhere and buy any toy, even when it wasn’t a holiday.

In the end, the real draw to getting older seemed to be living life without permission.

So of course, it’s deeply ironic when I find myself still waiting for some express permission that often never materializes.

Should I stay? Should I go? Should I quit? Should I try? Should I take the job? Is this the right move? SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT TO DO.

Making your own choices is liberating, for sure. (And obviously preferable to any other option.) But it also means you’re left with the responsibility for what happens as a result.

One of The Fool’s more enviable qualities is that they never wait for permission. They never even ask in the first place. Indeed, it seems they never got that memo.

The only guidance they listen to is the direct line running between their heart and their head, which serves to motivate all their actions. Anyone standing in their way, or anyone who wishes to convince them otherwise, doesn’t stand a chance. The Fool is headed squarely in the direction of their dreams and not even common sense can stop them.

The very first card of the Major Arcana, The Fool is like that first glint of sunrise creeping over the horizon. It’s the moment an idea is born, before you’ve had a chance to weigh its viability. (We last encountered this card back in February, when it urged us to take a step.)

The Fool is pure in that way only babies and unspoken dreams can be. Not a hint of discouragement. No fear. No hesitation or doubt. Never the sense that things could go wrong. Only belief, belief, belief.

Another of the great ironies of adulthood is when we are willing to pay to receive the sort of feedback we couldn’t escape as children. Consulting a coach, therapist, nutritionist, lawyer — or any expert, including books or podcasts — and asking them to please weigh in on our actions. We’re seeking advice, knowledge… and permission. Of course, that’s perfectly okay (and in many cases recommended). But when it comes to certain decisions, there is no one else who can possibly make the call.

The Fool is classically portrayed as a free-spirited vagabond about to wander off the edge of a cliff. But I particularly love this image of a unicorn leaping into the great unknown, as I find that it bears a striking resemblance to reality. Yes, I am aware that unicorns are not real. But rare is the person who engages in this sort of daring, cliff-jumping exercise — who has an idea or dream or urge and simply goes for it.

I can point to very few friends or acquaintances who live this way. But much like a unicorn, the thing they all have in common is that on some level they, too, believe they are special. They trust in their talents, in their rightness for the task at hand. Why not me? They think. And then they leap.

Yes, this is sometimes the stuff of egomania, a shared trait of the bombastic grifters Netflix biopics are made of. But there is also wisdom in recognizing the singular quality of a moment, and the singular quality we add to it. There is just one you living this one life. Maybe, The Fool whispers, there is something to be gleaned from this.

Much like a baby, unaware of its place in the larger world, this card urges us to trust in our own inherent value. If we spend less time asking “How?” and more time asking “Why not?” the path will feel that much easier.

The Fool bids us to follow our latent, childlike longings. What activities did you once enjoy? What did you look forward to? Freedom? Variety? The open highway stretching before you? The Fool wants us to reclaim some of that.

This week’s message suggests that what we need is less of a new beginning and more of a rebirth. It doesn’t have to be some big, dramatic, emerging-from-the-chrysalis moment. It can be small, private. Subtle. Internal.

Above all, The Fool wants to impart one piece of wisdom: Maybe all of life can’t be a choose-your-own-adventure. But you can still choose adventure.

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