Aspirations

Some days I have big dreams. I want to go to Paris. I want to write a book. I want to re-do the laundry room. I want to re-roof the house. 

Other days I just want to get through. To remain standing at the end of work. To make it home, to cook dinner. Heck, to maybe fold that load of laundry that has been sitting in a basket by the couch for too many days. 

On Sundays I want something entirely different. I want to be cozy. I want to sleep in, eat breakfast, have my house clean, laundry done, maybe a candle guttering in the breeze sent out by the heat register in the floor. I want to look around and know that it is ok to sit and read. That things are in order. Groceries stocked in the cupboards, S. & C. engaged in tasks they want to complete. It rarely happens. Sundays are lethal. I feel the week ahead pressing down on me like a cold that settles in my chest. I want to do so much that I sometimes defeat myself. And I'm all too guilty of taking my family down with me.

But there are, and have been, some Sundays where I achieve my goals. Not the writing a book kind of goal, the cozy goal.

If you ask me where I take my inspiration for a cozy home from, I'd immediately tell you - from my grandparents. If there is one place a person should and could feel cozy, it would have to be your grandparent's home, right?

The smell of bacon cooking. A nice little breakfast. The aroma of coffee brewing. Slow, slow times. Reading the Sunday paper. Things clean and orderly. Clothes drying in the dryer. Sending out that hot, fresh smell of clothes washed in Tide. Sitting on a heat register with your flannel nightgown ballooning out. Indulgent elders letting you hog all the heat from that register for yourself. Maybe scolding you just a little. Later on, a roast browning in Crisco and maybe a little drizzle of leftover bacon grease. Playing in the basement with the toys your mom and her brothers and sister played with as a child. Pawing through the deacon's bench for an old book - musty with age. Rain slapping against the big picture windows in the living room. Knowing that a cupcake was yours for the asking if you wandered into the kitchen. Sliding in sock feet down the slippery hallway. Treasured items, full of family history and lore in the exact same spot every time you visited. A decorating scheme that placed the most importance on family photos, clumsy grade school art projects displayed with pride, children's drawings plastered on the refrigerator. Knowing that anything you made, dreamed up, produced, sang about meant more to the two old people in this house than anything they ever paid good money for. Household items so well taken care of that they still work, still last, are still in use. At Christmas-time the strings of 1950's big bulbed holiday lights stretched the length of the house. A Noble Fir, so different from our own full, fluffy trees at home, with a mish-mash of ornaments - some lovely, some not. 

Is that not something to want to aspire to?

Some Sundays I get close. I've never had a better compliment than when C. comes in from outside and says to me, "Oh it is homey in here. It smells like your grandparent's house." When he thanks me for making our house a home, I cannot think of any accomplishment that means more.

I'm glad I had a good example.