We all do it for a day or two or several,
but I have had the pleasure for ten months now.

When my mom fell down the stairs on Christmas Eve and came
to live with us sooner than we had expected (or prepared for),
as soon as we came home from the emergency room, my
husband’s and my downstairs bedroom became hers. We
moved up to my away-at-college son’s room under the eaves.
Just enough room for a double bed, one small dresser (for my
husband!) and a foot and a half or so of empty space
in front of the bookshelves.

That foot and a half, a vintage suitcase with lustrous
brown lining, red grosgrain ribbons (and the heart-
provenance of it accompanying my mother-in-law to both
boarding school and college) sitting on a bench, an Ikea
shoe rack, my dressing table and a basket for my socks
and tights…and life has been sweetly simplified the since
January. I do have a little closet for my dresses
and skirts just down the hall.

When the building is done and we can move back
downstairs, I am seriously considering the continued
living-from-a-suitcase and might fill my dresser with linens
instead of clothes. We have no linen closet, very few closets at all
in our very old house, and I like dipping into my silky brown
suitcase at dressing-time.

I have been working away at the uncluttering of our
home, and have made many spots of clearness. But at the
moment, we are surrounded by too many piles and I realize
that my ambitions have been a bit unrealistic. I believe that the
coming holidays have been pushing me along, tho’ I didn’t
realize it until today. It is so hard to resist, that desire to have
everything Just So, but I am going to try. Tomorrow, I will
make a list of the things that will make me happiest to
have done before our Solstice-Christmas gathering and see
if I can’t accomplish them in a very part-time way in the
weeks to come.

It is easy for me to become a bit consumed by projects,
but then I miss out on little pleasures….so I am trying to
shift my attitude from a Getting Things Done one to one
expressed on the dust jacket of my latest read
Around the House and in the Garden
by Dominique Browning
(thank you for the recommendation, Julie!)

“…an insightful and moving narrative about
the solace and sense of self that can be found
through tending one’s home.”

That is more like it.