Gift a year
Somebody just
came to mind.
You didn’t have to think about it. You already know her, and you know the specific thing about her that nobody else has bothered to clock.
That she’s magnificent, and running three lives, and that the fire she’s got is going almost entirely into other people’s weather. She’d never call that a problem. She’d handle it, the way she handles everything, brilliantly, and forever.
So don’t hand her a candle. Hand her the studio, for a year. She puts her headphones in, tells the house what kind of day it’s been, and fifteen minutes later she walks out with the part of herself she’s been rationing. Some days that’s quiet. Most days it’s her nerve.
Your gift is seeing her. This is just the packaging it comes in.
- 01 You pay, she doesn’t. She never sees a credit card form.
- 02 She gets a note from Resonance House on the day you choose, with a personal note from you inside it.
- 03 She opens the door and walks in. She registers her account with one click.
When I became a Mom I started fantasizing about a getaway house. Stocked fridge with my favorite food, cozy blankets, my shows on the TV, a garden somebody else was tending. Nothing in it that needed me. Not a trip, not an adventure — I didn’t want to go anywhere. I just wanted a room where I could hear myself again.
Every woman I said it to said me too. Then all of us said the same second thing: someone should build that. And then we all laughed, because building it was the last thing any of us wanted to do.
So I built it anyway. This is the house.
— Shauna