Cozy Time

When it’s chilly outside, especially as the year comes to a close, aren’t we more likely to claim our cozy time? Don’t we enjoy sitting back, feet up, taking in the view?

And if there is no laudable view to behold? If there is no partner or BFF, no child or grandchild to share seasonal warmth? Isn’t this still the perfect few days to take a long, deep breath, to let it out slowly, to give yourself more fully to you… and to enjoy?

My “view” is not so elegant or exotic as a European cityscape at dusk — cue the current landscape that includes three heaps of laundry to the left, a stack of ad circulars and newspapers in need of recycling to the right, and nearby, the holiday greenery that I hope will hang in for another week so I don’t have to sweep up needles and leaves just yet. And, as I’m breathing in the vestiges of a heady scent courtesy of a single sprig of lilies in a small, clear vase on my kitchen table, a fragrance so spicy and intoxicating and surprisingly persistent that it drifts into the adjacent front room, as I’m leaning back into an old, oversized red chair that provides excellent lumbar support as I type out these morning thoughts, as I’m settling into a deliciously effective heating pad positioned right on the spot that gives me the most trouble, as I occupy my now most frequent perch from which I can see and hear my young men doing their thing, as I’m relishing reliving the little smiles on aforementioned faces when they opened their (sartorial) socks that I (predictably) presented them at holiday time, even as I allow considerations of what “gifts” I might share with others in my self-knowledge that for me, doing for others is an essential ingredient in doing for myself, I am gently focused, gingerly poised to press and decompress the minutes’ tendency to wriggle forward and backward rather than planting themselves within my grasp of now, and aware that I’m not necessarily “skilled” at living in the moment, I am working on it. Working on this. This present. These small, sweet, significant, unremarkable moments.

For me, any in-the-know-of-now moments are simple in nature; indeed, immersing myself and basking in cozy times with my sons as we seem to nurture the quiet of sitting together, the three of us, in a room overfilled with objects that remain uncertain of their place in a pretty but still foreign room, each of us perhaps content in recognition of pieces of home — a worn sofa, a dusty blue bronze figure atop a black bookcase, exuberant artworks in ruby red and burnt orange and one with a soft brown pockmarked face long referred to in the family as a drooling alien — and as we seem to be at peace in the warmth of this familiar-enough and familial and unobtrusive and even comforting quiet, reading, I find myself in a striking and all too elusive contentment.

I dare say, I can and will replicate this state of being if I try, if I allow myself to open its door, contentment my more easygoing companion when I am reading a short story or long essay or engaging novel whose author is a master of craft, contentment quick to arise in visiting with a neighbor over a glass of wine as she shares her tales of a tough workweek or her worries that are universally understandable when we let down our guard, contentment as playfully present when I am wearing both of my (favorite, flamboyant, flirty) footwear finds on the same morning — sparkly booties for a few hours followed by an audacious animal print on a kitten heel — and seeing my kiddos shaking their heads with that “OMG, can you believe Mom still does this?” look on their faces and not a word required to be spoken.

Not only is a sensation of cozy contentment created in hearing my boys’ laughter as they share a private joke or watch a movie together or offer me a thoughtful gesture that reminds me how far we’ve come through difficult times, but such a sense of fullness, of completeness, of the world righting itself and slowing its revolutions to a more manageable human pace is mine in that laughter, and still mine in the echo of that laughter once my now adult sons have headed back into their own busy lives.

For those who may doubt that we can achieve the ultimate tranquility of cozy time on our own – yes, I mean without a partner or family around — I say yes, we can. We most certainly can.

Here is my hastily configured bottom line these days, even as this (tumultuous?) year winds to a precarious close. So much of life, in my opinion, is “luck of the draw.” It is a matter of geography (where we are born). It is a matter of the family we are born into (their values as modeled and passed along, their healthy encouragement or something far less). It is a matter of the genetic make-up we inherit, assets and liabilities in every interpretation and rarely fixed and unflinching, and how well that make-up is received, which is to say how well we are determined to work with what we have in the cage and the cradle of our fortunes.

And of course — of course! — so much is a matter of our own actionable choices, choices made in the dark as well as the light, choices formed of our inchoate instincts, our inner dialog that maneuvers and motivates, our moments of fledgling courage that snowball, that turn the trickery of momentum into unforeseen treasure, our handling of serendipitous encounters that we embrace rather than walk away from, and our misfortunes that we must weather — circumstances that some of us are fearless enough or fearful enough or fatigued enough to transform into life lessons as a tool for survival and often, much more.

I may not be finding myself staring into a starry far-off sky but rather towels and sheets to take to the laundromat, recycling to bundle up and carry outside to the blue receptacle, and needles falling to the floor as the minutes slither into hours and then days and all too soon a different silence, less amiable, will return, but this remains an excellent time of year to reflect and reconsider. And for those of us who do too much churning of options, opportunities, and obstacles, this is perhaps our time to think a little less. Indeed, my Rx for myself (and you?): Put your feet up and soak in the view even if it means you close your eyes and imagine the vista. After all, if we can welcome the reality of dirty laundry yet imagine something wonderful that nonetheless lies ahead, aren’t we that much closer to appreciating whatever ordinary goodness we can find in the present while making room for bringing our visions to fruition?

I am wishing you a peaceful holiday season, and as always, I welcome your thoughts.

 

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• Luck of the Draw