A GENTLE PLACE

Matisse, "Interior at Nice," 1919

Lately I've been hard on myself. Why, I don't know. I'm critical of too much.  My aging body, what I eat and drink. Some wrinkles here, some sagging there; haircut uneven, walk not brisk enough . . . .  What unkind thoughts.  If someone else treated me like this I'd ban them from my presence.  How many calories in that brûlée?  How many in that drink?  Is it sugar-free?  How dare I even think about a hot chocolate with marshmallows.  

I hope you're not doing this.  I hope you're being tender with yourself. But if you're not, if you've veered into self-judgment like I have, let's not.  Let's not set rules for ourselves that make us unhappy.  Especially if they have to do with aging, which, after all, is a blessing. Living is a gift and living long . . . well, the greatest forfeiture of all is dying young.  If we've lost someone young it's been etched on our heart.

I would like to love myself the way I love my home.  That may seem like a strange comparison, but every morning I awake glad to see the forest out the bedroom windows, eager to walk down the hall past the courtyard to the kitchen, ready to set the kettle on and rescue Mr. Wiggles from his night's sleep.  I don't mind the age of the house, the broken upstairs bathroom fan, the (new) water marks on the ceiling. No, I just love it the way it is. It makes me happy every day.  

It's a home where with the same friends we've celebrated birthdays and anniversaries but also gathered after standing at the grave site or columbarium.  There's no human emotion this house hasn't held within its walls. Not one.  And its done so with grace.  You can laugh in one room and cry in another and the house enfolds you.  Isn't yours the same?  A place of comfort without judgment.  "I am here for you," it says. Lay down your head. 

And shouldn't the same be true of us?  Shouldn't we be a gentle haven for ourselves?  Like our homes, that see all, absorb all and don't critique.  I'd like to be as reliable a consolation for myself as my home is.  It's a good analogy.  Being our own refuge.  Retreating inward when we want, to a place of safety.  Coming home not just to where we live but to ourselves.  Wrapping ourselves in love with a tenderness we often reserve for others.  

The opposite of being hard on yourself is not being easy on yourself.  It's being kind. 

I'm glad I thought this through.  

                                                      Nina Naomi