Bringing the Outdoors Inside

August days in southern California can start with a surprising chill that belies the worrisome state-wide drought and the gravity of fire season. Outside my writer's window, Zippy and Sippy, the resident hummingbirds, wage their customary battles for primacy over the hummingbird feeder hanging from the grandfatherly branches of the California laurel. A family of snails has set up homekeeping in a crevice in the rock wall. I tend to these gentle creatures with offerings of carrot sticks and lettuce leaves. The hedge is cut in a low scallop to afford a neighborly wave from passers-by. The gardener -- an occupation as common to SoCal living as a personal trainer -- tends the lawn and hedges with the snap of shears and the motoring vroom of a mower.

The streetscape changes as dramatically during a rare storm as the storm's drama itself. The awning of clouds that put the no-sky in No Sky July builds up in ominous layers, providing the palette of steel blue and wool gray that is as endemic to the Western sky as is a painted sunset. Intense sunlight shines through the thunderhead, gilding the view through the writer's window with the restful beauty of greenery soaking up rain.

As the front yard is just a patio's width away, I have gotten into the habit of placing the houseplants outside when it rains. For those plants that can tolerate it, a rain bath is as restorative as a long soak in the tub is to we non-herbaceous beings. It cleans the plant's leaves, aerates the soil, and invigorates the root system. The rain bath refreshes the tiny spirits of these living beings just as surely as it refreshes the earth it falls upon and the spirits of we who dance in it not with fronds and branches but with arms and legs. The rain dances is a dance of gratitude and of connection, in sympathy for rain in a state that sorely needs it.

Areas of transition from outside to inside are an important element of all homes. The transition area may be no more than the door and the hallway or path that leads to it, but it is always present. Los Angeles apartments, especially those of the pre-condo building boom, often open directly into the living area. In our urban home, the transition area is the patio, laid between the front of the building and the low rock wall. The yard is full from sidewalk to wall with the lush greenery of bromeliads crowding the soil, of baby palms stretching their fronds skyward, of the protective limbs of our beloved California laurel. The streetscape is framed by the earthen view of leaves, of bark, of rock.

In designing our urban home in Los Angeles, one intention that automatically presented itself was bringing the outdoors inside. The layout itself commands this, for when door and windows are open, the greenery seems to press inside. This largesse, and the availability of space itself, are the reasons that rooms in California homes often open directly to and from outdoor spaces such as deck or courtyard, even our humble patio. We bring the outdoors into our indoor living spaces. We fill rooms with chunky furniture of redwood and saddle leather, with textiles in earth tones inspired by sunset and vineyard, with accents evoking canyon and beach. Wherever our design scheme places us, from Haight-Asbury to Hollywood, we welcome plants indoors to live as the members of the family that they are, the sacred keepers of life beyond walls and within them.