a favorite place

Jaime asked.

I think one of my favorite places in my house has got to be my bedroom. But more specifically, my bed. The picture actually only shows the top of the headboard there, since the room’s too small to get far enough away to see the whole thing.

First, that headboard reminds me that at some point during the last two years I had enough time, energy, and drive to dig up an antique mantel, refinish it, create the upholstered insert from plywood, foam, fabric, wire, and buttons, and hang the entire thing on the wall next to my bed. It’s inspiring all by itself.

But there are other reasons I love this place. It’s the place where I wake up every morning, the first weak light slanting through the dormer window, with the baby I’ve gathered up to nurse in the middle of the night snuggled up to my side, softly snoring. I stick my nose in his chubby neck and drink in deep draughts of sweet baby smell, and it gives me the strength to start the day.

On precious Saturday mornings we’re woken up by the sound of our door opening, as one of our children steals into our room in the darkness to squeeze in between us. Another one comes, and another, until we’re tickling and laughing and falling off the edges of the bed, forced out to go get dressed and busy on Saturday’s chores.

It’s the place where, at day’s end, we circle up with our older children to play “go fish” or “old maid”. It’s the place where we kneel and teach them to pray.

And it’s the place where we go after they’re all in bed, to close the door, take down a book, and read. The house is quiet, and our work is as done as it will ever be. We sit in companionable silence, each wrapped in a story that’s exciting, instructive, poignant or fantastic. There’s an occasional chuckle or gasp, a line or two read out loud, and eventually one of us closes his book and turns over to go to sleep. Many nights one of us will get caught up in a book, and stay up far too late, making furtive glances at the clock and silently promising “just one more chapter”. The reading is soothing to our jangled nerves, the companionship is priceless, and the setting is perfect.

So I think my bed registers pretty highly on my list of favorite places. Not just because I sleep there, because, ha, heaven knows I do precious little of that, but because for me, it’s the center of what I think of as home.