My first ever project in my first year in Architecture school was to design a Children’s bedroom. We were given a room dimension and we had to add architectural as well as interior elements to make the room as kid friendly as possible. I chose to design a bed for the child that was built-in but slightly raised off the ground making it cozy while being adventurous. I don’t remember many other details now, fifteen years later, but I remember one thing. I wanted to add fluorescent stars and a moon stuck on the ceiling which would glow in the night when the lights are off. Seriously this was fifteen plus years ago when getting your hands on anything fluorescent in India was impossible. I loved that idea, to feel like you are sleeping under the sky. I don’t know if Babs will ever know what that is like, the feeling, the soft wind wiping your face now and then, the rays of the sun literally waking you up, ethereal, but I wanted to simulate that feel…when I was in school.

Yesterday as I lay in the room staring at the room with Babs tugging on my ear it came back to me. I saw the ceilings lit up, with stars. Stars that took over every surface in the room, small and big, constellation, it was the night sky in her room. My first year in architecture school came back to me. I went through college life in the few minutes I lay there waiting for her to drift away. Simple things in life trigger powerful emotions and hidden away memories, like an odd tune, or a color, a smell and this time for me it was seeing the stars on the ceiling. Something I had wanted to do so long ago and I had completely forgotten about it in the mad rush to make a life. It made me happy that at least one of my ideas have happened and my daughter was enjoying it, with me.

Unlike my fluorescent stars  These stars came out a turtle that projected stars in your room in the dark. I had used it for her first year and somehow it had gotten hidden behind the amount of toys that she had collected. Randomly a couple of weeks ago Babs had pulled it out her box and she wanted to know what it was. Together we played with it, changing colors, projecting it inside the comforter to have all the stars within our hands and then out into the room. It was fun and now has become a part of our daily "lying down with Babs before she sleeps" routine. I am loving it.

Love

Starry ART