By Our Bedsides, Vol. 10 – Madeline Baker
By Our Bedsides is The Attic on Eighth’s evening series, sharing the methods and products we use to unwind. In a time when the world feels unstable, Attic writer Madeline Baker gives us a glimpse into her nightly routine.
A beloved bedside table. All photography by Madeline Baker.
My bedside is the surest way for me to know I am, no matter how temporarily, at home. I’ve been unsettled for most of the last twelve years, living - as many of us do – from short term lease to short term lease. And I’ve also been fortunate enough to travel, which means more houses, more bedsides. But my bedside is sacred no matter where I am.
Some of the items come and go (a new box, a different hairslide) but some are constant: my buddha brought back from India when I was 18. If I’m going somewhere and can’t take it with me then I have a copper and brass bangle with the om mani padme om mantra on it, and it reminds me even at my most atheist that all over the world people pray each day, and the breeze in the Himalayas picks up the prayer flags and shakes this mantra out of them.
I always have crystals. I’d get them as ve always had them and they were a treat when I was a child and would go into gem shops on holiday at the seaside, and I’ve had them ever since. At the moment it’s a rugged rose quartz, other times it's my beloved and enigmatic green jade from New Zealand.
For the last two years, I've kept with me a picture of the town I grew up in by my bedside. It means more to me with every passing year, and with this photo I am back on a still Sunday morning in late summer – smelling the salt and the warm air, watching the rowing gig cross the green, millpond still harbour.
There’s always a cascade of papers (I like to write on loose sheets), my glasses, pens, nail varnish, magazines, notebooks, lip balms (I always have around five in circulation, never one to hand) and as anyone who lives with me will attest, around ten bobby pins.
After many, many flings and half-used (then donated) creams, I’m a dedicated user of The Ordinary at bedtime. Their Hylauronic Acid + B5 which goes on first, then caffeine solution around the eyes and then usually a rosehip or argan oil. Skincare for me is a guard against anxiety, against uncertainty. During times of very limited means, I used oats and olive oil to calm my painfully sensitive skin. My skin reacts to almost every change in mood and temperature, keeping it calm is now a routine I find inherently soothing in its own right.
In the end, my bedtime routine always involves listening to something – music, podcast, audiobook or meditation, and losing myself in it enough to drift off, safe in the knowledge of my small square of home beside me by my bed.
Madeline Baker is a trainee solicitor living in Exeter, in South West England. She studied English Literature as her BA before moving into law. She spends much of her time trying to come to grips with full time training for the legal profession, drinking coffee, and trying to cram music and poetry into the remaining hours in the day.
By Our Bedsides is The Attic on Eighth’s evening series, sharing the methods and products we use to unwind. In a time when the world feels unstable, Perfume Columnist Mishka Hoosen gives us a glimpse at his nightstand as a place of healing and comfort.