Designing for friends in the single life

I have been reading Amy Key’s Arrangements In Blue. The poet-author explores the layers and meanings in a life that is lived as a single woman, setting her entire narrative against the backdrop of Joni Mitchell’s iconic album, Blue. As her romantic aspirations are stalled, she realises her anchor and role as a homemaker wouldn’t be as a mother, wife or even girlfriend but in creating a space for the communion of friends. While much of the author’s history is not like mine—I have just stepped out of a very long marriage and have two children—what stood out was how even when her romantic life doesn’t go according to plan, like me, her home still became a space of selffulfilment and joy. “A place where friends are welcome to drop in, always have a place to stay, there’s the smell of coffee in the morning, mingled with the scent of dhoop.” A year and a half later, my mostly for-one-person apartment’s kitchen shelves are filled with different sets of glasses for various types of alcohol, more collections of cutlery than anyone would deem necessary, and the refrigerator contains a vulgar amount of kombucha, wine and beer, for guests.