What My Fireplace Taught Me
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It's always been a dream of mine to have a beautiful house with a wonderful fireplace, where my ideal soul mate and I would read, write, and make art on cold winter days, with chili on the stovetop and bread rising on the counter. And I actually have most of the elements on hand now to bring this mental diorama to life. Dream house? Well, a really nice house. Fireplace? Pretty good one. Soul mate? Ideal.
And yet, in the nine years we've lived here, we very seldom done this. NINE YEARS. What do we do with ourselves? We get up, hang around, do laundry, think about all the work that needs done on the house, bemoan the amount of dog hair that's everywhere . . . in essence, I spend my house-hours thinking about enjoying my house. Later. When everything is, you know, fixed.
This is what snowstorms are good for. During the snow season this winter, Jay and I got in the habit of spending every Sunday in our front room (not the tv room). I'd put on the coffee to brew, Jay'd start the fire. I'd get my Kindle, he'd get his latest drawing. He'd bring our armchairs together, I'd situate Rocky on the ottoman between them. SWEET.
Those Sundays really affected me. I have to remind myself that life doesn't stretch on forever. "Later" is only an option for so long. Now, I'm more likely to make plans with a friend or cook a meal or spend time writing than I was even this fall. To get out of my head and wed my brain waves to my reality.
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It's always been a dream of mine to have a beautiful house with a wonderful fireplace, where my ideal soul mate and I would read, write, and make art on cold winter days, with chili on the stovetop and bread rising on the counter. And I actually have most of the elements on hand now to bring this mental diorama to life. Dream house? Well, a really nice house. Fireplace? Pretty good one. Soul mate? Ideal.
And yet, in the nine years we've lived here, we very seldom done this. NINE YEARS. What do we do with ourselves? We get up, hang around, do laundry, think about all the work that needs done on the house, bemoan the amount of dog hair that's everywhere . . . in essence, I spend my house-hours thinking about enjoying my house. Later. When everything is, you know, fixed.
This is what snowstorms are good for. During the snow season this winter, Jay and I got in the habit of spending every Sunday in our front room (not the tv room). I'd put on the coffee to brew, Jay'd start the fire. I'd get my Kindle, he'd get his latest drawing. He'd bring our armchairs together, I'd situate Rocky on the ottoman between them. SWEET.
Those Sundays really affected me. I have to remind myself that life doesn't stretch on forever. "Later" is only an option for so long. Now, I'm more likely to make plans with a friend or cook a meal or spend time writing than I was even this fall. To get out of my head and wed my brain waves to my reality.
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posted by Anonymous at
12:23 AM
3 Comments:
oh, you are so, so, SO RIGHT! i love this post. i could read it over and over. just last night, sitting on the sofa, g watching an instant-stream Netflix movie, ewers truly surfing GAP.com for tee shirts, i turned to my honey and said, "these are my favorite times of day—the ones where you're just sitting next to me and we're not really doing anything." i love, love, love them. it's so easy to forget about the down time. or feel guilty about it. or be agitated during it. we have a gas fireplace at our new home, and i intend to use it A. LOT. i love this post. LOVE, Love, love this post.
—caffeinated
Thank you thank you thank you!
You ARE so right. It is the little things that make life so sweet. See Luck Girl post above. Who would have thought in college your list of potential life mate qualities would include "wants to listen to my thoughts on a recent Medieval reading"?
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