Luxury and simplicity

Over time the concept of luxury changes drastically. These mossy bricks cover the floor of a Dean and Deluca cafe in Georgetown in DC. It was about 8 am and there was nothing else open and no one else in the place, a little too early for most of those rushing to work. When I was looking at these, I was reminded how anti-septic a place like my grandmother's was (when people pine nostalgically for the smell of their grandmother's houses, cookies and all, I think of pine-sol and raid). Someone of her generation had had enough of nature encroaching into their spaces, they needed a time and space away from dirt and moss.

Here however, in the cafe section of an expensive grocery store, bricks were covered with moss and small finches flew about, competing for crumbs. This space is a semi-outdoor space, and I'm sure there were no finches flying around in the grocery part of the store, but how barren and dirty this must have seen to someone of a much older generation. My generation grew up in anti-septic rooms and with antibacterial soap and with lives much more complex than most of those in my grandmother's generation. The addition of a few finches or standing water just under the walls (made of garage doors, how cheap) reads less of mosquitos and malaria and more about authenticity and lack of pretense, even in a place purposely chosen and designed with this type of "authentic" experience in mind. It also reads of simplicity and lack of fussiness, traits lacking in many people's everyday lives.