Nook
Lunch today in the nook was silent except for my slurping soup and streaming thoughts, the latter being louder. Every so often I'll have lunch this way. No music or TV, no yelling kids, no cajoling parents, no dreaded ticking timer that serves as the final judge of when dinner is finally over.
The muted winter light comes in through two south facing windows and rests on the round table for four. The furnace blows a soft draft that flutters the cheerful drawings covering the nook's three walls. There are drawings from when we first moved in a year and half ago, and one from just this week. Harrison's orange Mona Lisa. Gigi's collection of rectangle faces with legs. The nook smiles with their art.
Without the kids here, the nook is strikingly peaceful and barren.
I sink into this solitude and imagine the elderly woman who lived here just before us. Her and her husband were the original owners of this house 57 years ago. She probably conceived in our bedroom, wobbled pregnant through the hall and brought her babies home through our front door. She fed them in our nook, let them outside through the back door, and watched them play in the garden from the kitchen window while she made dinner.
Before we moved in, our neighbors said they used to see her sitting in the nook by herself, drinking coffee. Her husband had died, so she lived here alone with her dog. I see her looking out into the verdant backyard, admiring the flowers she had planted over recent years. I thank her for being a gardener and for loving roses. I thank her for taking care of this house and loving it as I do.
I wonder if, while she sat in the nook with her coffee, she reminisced about the meals in the nook with her children when they were young. Did the memory make her sad? Did she wish she had those days back? Did she remember the art on the walls?
I imagine myself in her place as an old woman, and I wish for those years back. I wish for the chaos and exhaustion of family life. For the baskets and baskets of small, dirty clothes. For the volume and satiation that a full life brings. For the sweetness of a loving home.
Tonight's dinner in the nook was just as loud and frazzling as any other night. But if I didn't have those few quiet lunches, I could never appreciate what a gift those dinners are and how soon they vanish.
The muted winter light comes in through two south facing windows and rests on the round table for four. The furnace blows a soft draft that flutters the cheerful drawings covering the nook's three walls. There are drawings from when we first moved in a year and half ago, and one from just this week. Harrison's orange Mona Lisa. Gigi's collection of rectangle faces with legs. The nook smiles with their art.
Without the kids here, the nook is strikingly peaceful and barren.
I sink into this solitude and imagine the elderly woman who lived here just before us. Her and her husband were the original owners of this house 57 years ago. She probably conceived in our bedroom, wobbled pregnant through the hall and brought her babies home through our front door. She fed them in our nook, let them outside through the back door, and watched them play in the garden from the kitchen window while she made dinner.
Before we moved in, our neighbors said they used to see her sitting in the nook by herself, drinking coffee. Her husband had died, so she lived here alone with her dog. I see her looking out into the verdant backyard, admiring the flowers she had planted over recent years. I thank her for being a gardener and for loving roses. I thank her for taking care of this house and loving it as I do.
I wonder if, while she sat in the nook with her coffee, she reminisced about the meals in the nook with her children when they were young. Did the memory make her sad? Did she wish she had those days back? Did she remember the art on the walls?
I imagine myself in her place as an old woman, and I wish for those years back. I wish for the chaos and exhaustion of family life. For the baskets and baskets of small, dirty clothes. For the volume and satiation that a full life brings. For the sweetness of a loving home.
Tonight's dinner in the nook was just as loud and frazzling as any other night. But if I didn't have those few quiet lunches, I could never appreciate what a gift those dinners are and how soon they vanish.
posted by Anne at 8:01 PM
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