When I was little, my mother might spend a Saturday afternoon scouring scores of home and design magazines. She would tear out particularly dazzling pages by their full-bleed edges and slide them into clear plastic inserts before filing them into three-inch-ringed white binders. She would then line the binders up along a shelf, where she could occasionally pull one down and peruse it with a cup of coffee in one of our home’s many wing-back chairs. (She had similarly packaged recipe collections.) When I was, say, 10, I would imitate a like-minded ritual, but with my sticker book instead, prepping it for a trading session with my neighbor Samantha. (Samantha was four years younger and the sticker book was a golden go-to activity when I would babysit her. I obviously secretly cherished the activity just as must as she did.)

1982? 83?

As years passed, I sort of turned up my teenage nose at the whole “home decor” thing. I mean, I lived in an impeccable home at the time so I wasn’t wanting for beautiful surroundings. Our little rancher from the ’60s was there for us when we struck out on our own as two fearless gals, and my mother spent the next decade and change completely re-imagining, re-furbishing, and re-decorating it into something very worthy of those glossy magazine pages. But I was too young to relish the root system implied by a 30-year mortgage.

When I was 15, I thought I would surely spend the next 30 years traveling the globe instead, having adventures, and attempting to commit them to the page. It’s not lost on me that I’m living down here at the bottom of the earth where our circumstances have completely ruled “location” out of the five- and ten-year plans. While I welcome that spirit of new horizons and transformation, I’m sitting in our apartment stocked with rented furniture and concrete walls we’re not allowed to hang anything on and I’m starting to dream about a little house of our own somewhere someday…

What I’m getting at is that it’s happened, people. While our international living accommodations delegate U.S. magazine deliveries and endless shelf space to the realm of fantasy, Pinterest has come along just in time to turn me into my mother. Don’t get me wrong — I’m embracing this development. For all three of you who may not already know about or be using this service, it’s a virtual pin board for everything you fancy — from those home decor cut-outs my mother loves so, to recipes, clothing, accessories, dream travel destinations, artwork, books, crafts, hairstyles, etc. Take a look at my profile for a better idea. The eye candy options are truly limitless.

1993

So, here I am in Chile, “pinning” recipes and kitchens and bathtubs and outdoor living sanctuaries that I could surely never afford, but I nonetheless indulge in. I think that was the point of my mom’s daydreaming too — to escape for an hour or so into a realm of spotless taste and decadent design and inspiring possibilities. As further evidence that I am becoming my mother (and in part thanks to the few English channels we have here in Chile), I’ve also become quite the fan of cooking shows (the bland culinary adventure that can be a Chilean market is also a driving force).

On screen, I can at least salivate over Jamie Oliver‘s skillful ways with lemongrass or crusted fish or bacon vinaigrette, not to mention Anthony Bourdain‘s “No Reservations” antics in culinary crosshairs the world over. Sure, I can recreate some of these things, but the second the recipe calls for mint paste or ginger or ground turkey, I know anything within a comfortable distance of the apartment has been ruled out. So, I have Pinterest to ogle at — there are worse preoccupations.

So, when did it happen to you? When did you notice that something your mom (or aunt or dad or big sister) says emerge from your own mouth? When did you start a collection you know was inspired by someone who inspired you? At base, Pinterest may just be another social network of sorts that lets me like and repin images that my friends have liked and repinned, but it’s also an homage to a maturation process rooted in those weekends spent close to my mom’s side, as she flipped through magazines and dreamed of the spaces she might try to replicate around us in our safe little home.

2011

And that is really the kind of home I dream about creating one day. I’m not sure there’s any picture that could quite capture it except for the one in my mind’s eye right now.