On Coziness

To my way of thinking, coziness is essential and carries two dimensions: what it looks like on the outside and what it feels like on the inside.

The photo of me I've chosen for this blog looks cozy to an outsider. I'm wrapped up warm in a comfortable chair with a glass of red wine in my hand. (This was actually at one of my sons' homes, but they've subsequently sold what they always called the "poofy chair" -- alas, alas!) It is a cozy memory, that photo, that I'm very glad I still have.

To outsiders (if there were photos), I've looked cozy on a rainy day in an atrium of our previous home with a book and a cup of tea. I've looked cozy on a snowy day in front of a fireplace, chatting with friends (not so much anymore since we've moved to Southern California). I've looked cozy on a feather bed under a down comforter snuggled next to my warm bear of a husband. Any one of those views would appear cozy to an outsider. They also could be masking inner feelings of wretchedness and grief, and on occasion, they have.

And sometimes I probably don't look cozy at all (in that Norman Rockwell sense) when I actually am. Playing a board game with my children when they were younger was a very cozy feeling for me. Preparing dinner so that my husband walks into a home rich with delicious smells also feels very cozy to me, even though as I stand in my kitchen puttering around, deciding which knife to use, then endlessly chopping, there is no idealized vision of cozy to be seen. It's even felt cozy to me to walk into a sterile hotel room at the end of a long day of working on the road. Shutting the door and hearing nothing but inviting silence can sometimes be the coziest feeling possible at that given moment.

I've sat in hard hospital chairs by an unforgiving sea of beds, but because it was the only place in the whole world I wanted to be, it felt cozy -- especially the night I slept next to my father, jumping up and attending to him as needed, the very last night I saw him alive. But I loved that feeling of being with him, alone, and of the appreciation and love that shone from his eyes. (By then, he could not speak; the ALS had done its thing.)

Coziness in this sense seems somehow related to feeling safe, to doing something important for someone else, to drinking in the kindness and laughter of others, to living fully in the present moment with a sense of joy that is stronger than a sense of loss. Reflecting on the many unsung cozy times of my life provides peace and a stable filled with well-being.