MEMORIES OF HOMES

 Is there one place you have lived that you love more than any other?  Is it because of the place, the time or the people?  I may be thinking about this because we are living in our friends' home in Santa Barbara, California.  I have been posting about this.  They have a view of the mountains.  None of my own homes has ever been in a setting like this. 

My life is more prosaic.  Our North Carolina home is mid-century modern with trees and a meadow. Lots of privacy but always needing clean-up and repair.  Fallen branches, flooding creek, piles of debris.  Deer ticks and humidity.  A lovable place in every way, but hard to keep up.  Here, "seems it never rains in southern California," as the song goes.  So as house-sitters, we are watering desert-like pot plants that sit on a pebbled patio (no grass of course).  I never knew how vibrant bougainvillea are. 

Where do you live?  Overlooking a city street?  Traffic sounds out front?  Do you have a balcony to lean over?  Can you wave when a neighbor walks by?  Or is it swings and a sandbox in the back yard for you?  Have you been able to make all the places you've lived feel like home?

Where we have lived in Princeton, New Jersey for short stints, the bathroom window abuts the sidewalk where the kids line up for their school bus.  The kitchen door opens to a fire escape and laundry is in a moldy basement.  But with plants, pillows and fairy lights it's a super place to live.  I could make that home.

Where we stay in London, we carry our laundry to the basement across the street.  Years ago when we lived there as international students, we were all young and having babies.  Decades later we lived in a colleague's apartment in Zimbabwe while our London-born daughter taught in Lebowa, South Africa. Twice a week a woman washed our few clothes in the bathtub and swept the worn carpet with a broom. I remember all these places with affection.

I think about people who have lived in the same place forever.  Maybe that's you.  My best friend from childhood-to-now, has lived in our native state her whole life. Her children and grandchildren too. Same with my favorite cousin who is like an older sister. I can't help but think that because their friendships are longer, they must be deeper than mine. Deeper connections with place, with the history around them.

The other thing about homes, though, is they aren't just places of comfort.  We all know that tragedies happen in our homes.  Bad news.  Hurtful discoveries.  Facts that won't disappear.  Words that can't be unspoken:  forgiven, yes, but not unsaid.  Where love is greatest, emotional distress is too. Our beloved pets die.  Our parents die.  A spouse, a partner and yes, even a child may die.  So home isn't just a refuge.  It's where we get bad news as well as good.  We have fights there.  We get hurt there.  We crawl inside our closets and hide our scars. Home is not such a simple place after all.

The sayings about home are interesting. Is home people or a place?  I don't have a single friend in London, but the city myself is my friend.  I know the bus routes and alleyways, the neighborhood restaurants.  I can shelter in a museum or cafe. Many of us have a favorite city.  

Robert Frost (1874-1963) says, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."  That may be true if our parents are alive.  Or a brother or sister or friend who loves us.  But not everyone has a place like that.  The greatest scourge is homelessness.

British poet Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) says that winter is the time for home--good food, comfort and warmth.  But so are the other seasons, we might say.  I am here in our friends' home in spring.  That too is a time for home, when we might grow with the season.  Or summer, when the sun warms our souls and bodies. Or fall, when the reds and yellows remind us of death and rebirth.

My widowed father lived in his home until two weeks before he died at age 94.  By that time home was a small apartment in a retirement community where he had spent the last ten years. He enjoyed it as much as any home where he had ever lived: company, good food, activities and just 10 minutes from me.  May we all be so fortunate.

Thoughtfully, Nina Naomi 

  

  

"this is just to say"

Degas

You might comfort me. You might, thinking not of yourself but of me.

You could say, "I'm sorry you were reminded this week.  I know how it makes you feel.  I don't want you to feel that way." 

That's something you might say.  

You could bear that, couldn't you? To touch me with hand or word? 

Some things stay with us a long time.  We think that deep healing has come and IT HAS NOT.  

This week shocks for the soul.  

The pearl whom I never dreamed remembered what you called your "friendship" -- says it so clearly.  

How much you must have talked about your "friend"."

Did you hear what I said just now?    

We live with this.  Much to let go.  

The mind moves so rapidly that sometimes how one felt in the past becomes how one feels in the present.  

Something that took my breath once takes it again (and then again).  

For good or ill some memories-thoughts-facts do not go away.  For good or ill.  

Ill as in sad, needing God.  

Heart-held, mind-felled, cat-belled warnings please, no more right now, so much to dodge.  

Each of us carries a lot, sometimes mired in sand.  

Letting go is not a one-time event. 

It doesn't erase anything; that is not its job. 

Letting go can only change our relationship to what is.  We do it over and over.  

I let go of something long past.  I admit the reminders are not your fault.   

I do not know anything you do not know; that is probably true.    

So much is a dance.  Not all of life, but some.  

The parts we might want to sidestep, to leap beyond, to twist away from. 

So much of life is a dance. 

Look at the leaves, they're dancing.  

I can dance with you.  

IN WHAT CAN WE TAKE COMFORT?

In what can we take comfort? 

• That better days are ahead.  When we look for the light we find it.  Everyone has their share of bad days.  A bad day is not a bad life.
  
• What we can control:  
• our reactions, 
• how we treat people, 
• who we choose as friends and lovers, 
• how we spend our money, 
• what we believe, 
• the space we create for ourselves, 
• the boundaries we set, 
• how we use our free time, 
• our actions . . . .
• That it's possible to grieve and live fully at the same time.  
• That there's no good reason not to be happy with who we are. We shouldn't miss a chance to lift our face to the sun.   
• That hard thoughts, prayers and petitions can be a good day's work. 
• Thoughts about where we have been.  Then we become more clear about who we are and where we want to go.  Traveling outward and inward are both good.  This can be a metaphor.  Or not. 
  
• Our childhood home and neighborhood.  Family graves. Let's visit them.  It's wonderful to think about those who came before.    
  
• That the more things remain the same, the more things remain the same.  So change if we need to.  Don't change if we don't need to. But sort it out and do it.  We can.
  
• That although losses don't always get better, they do become something we can bear. They become who we are.  It's not a trade, never a trade, but without a loss we might not be who we are.
• Our true home.  Outdoors?  Indoors?  By the sea? In the forest? A certain country or place?  Go there we must, if only in our mind.  
• That we can let go of rumination. Rumination is consistent, repetitive attention on past occurrences that produce negative emotions like anxiety, hurt, etc.  It is not part of processing. It is not our natural state. 
• Being loved by someone deeply.  This gives us strength, security and peace.  Loving someone deeply in return does the same for them.  This is perhaps the most important comfort of all.  It can be anyone.  This need not be sexual or romantic.  It is just love.
  

Oh, aren't you ready for these comforts?  Aren't we all?  Some are easy, some not so much, but all are there.           In peace, Nina Naomi    

HAPPY WINTER

 

Pot of Thyme on Craft Table by Door

Finally, real snow in the Piedmont. Thank goodness no power outages!  We undecorated the tree weeks ago and put it outside sans ornaments.  It looks so cozy out there, the cold air keeping the needles fresh.  Shall I leave it up till Valentine's?  Then maybe snip the branches to use in the fireplace.  Last year the fire pit was such a staple of Covid outdoor get-togethers, we about wore it out.  

I hope you're warm and comfy where you are.  We have Florida family--no winter there; New Jersey family--winter frigid and long; St. Louis family--snow and ice (Midwest winters can be brutal); North Carolina family--a little of this and that.  On the North Carolina coast the sun drops into the ocean this month.  Friends and strangers gather on the beach at sunset to watch the magic, then drift off home for early dinners. We do it too when we're there. 

When we lived in a drafty Illinois parsonage the wind blew right through the walls.  This is factually true.  The temperature of the walls was only a few degrees higher than the outside air.  No insulation at all.  I would speed-dress the babies.  Best to be young in those conditions.  But here,  the snow makes the house a snug harbor. 

What do you like to do on a day like today?  Of course, if there are children, play in the snow:  sled on it, build with it, lie on it, tromp in it, throw it . . . .  Something besides shovel it.  Cold fingertips and toes often mean warm spirit and heart.  

Early Snowfall

But also a bit of light:  sunlight by day, moonlight after the sun sets, starlight and candlelight as the night deepens.  A comfortable chair, comfort food, something to read or watch.  Today is Sunday, a day for slowing down anyway.  Hopefully, if they're not snowed in already, even the hardest workers get a day off.  For many it is today.

Earlier this week our family had a health scare that did not materialize.  All is well, the tests said.  With my penchant for waiting for the other shoe, I was sure the news would not be a comfort.  But it was.  You know how it's said, if you're not depressed everything is enjoyable.  Well, that's how this snow day is for me.  I'm wishing for the same and more for you.  Happy winter!                  Nina Naomi

 

 

 

JULY CAN BE COZY TOO

 

From bellaGrace, 2020

No thesaurus defines cozy as secure, but that's how I think of it. Because then it can be an all-year feeling.  Then cozy can be a childhood memory, a slow dance in the kitchen, or a space filled with pillows, photos and plants.  It  can be a booth in a place where you're a regular, or even your car tooling along a familiar road to a familiar place.  Security, comfort and contentment are not bound by the seasons; they are feelings we seek and create year-round.  

I began blogging in 2017 when we lived for a semester in an old 3-story brick building in Princeton, NJ.  It was winter and our apartment was on the ground-floor right on the sidewalk.  My husband could walk across the street to teach his classes. Mostly we were snowed-in.  Three small rooms and raging central heat.  Definitely cozy.  It was an un-busy, un-hectic time; no wanting more or feeling dissatisfied.  A perfect time to realize what I wanted to share. 

We can settle into the things we enjoy any time.  Now, in July, it's cool sheets, denim shorts and breezy tops, sometimes a sweatshirt or cotton sweater. Where we live the vines and bushes have exploded and are growing so close to the house that they almost press against the windows, like being snowed-in but by green tendrils.  If you're OK with wading through North Carolina lushness, it's cozy indeed.  

I read something by Teagan Olivia Sturmer, a writer who says, "I find myself drawn to the cozy and simple when things go bad.  And sometimes things can go very bad." (bellagracemagazine.com, 2020) I can identify with that.  Why else would hot tea be my go-to drink?  She also writes that choosing to feel hope is not always easy, but it is always brave.  I can identify with that too.  Giving up is easy; hoping is not. When I've had the choice to bail or do something brave, the bravery has sprung from hope.  

So where are you finding coziness this summer month? Where's your security, comfort and contentment? Is there a place or activity where time stops and you enjoy the ritual of just being you?  Do you paint, write, knit, daydream, run?  Blog?  Is there a time where you can be your own best friend and breathe?  When you are warmed through with contentment? (Can I confess that a nap is cozy?)  How do you capture cozy?               Nina Naomi

  Starra Neely Blade, b. 2003, BellaGrace, 2020