Secrets to Happiness: Secret #15

This started out as a somewhat whiny post about something that I seem to lack in my life. Then I reconsidered because I actually do have a few of these, they just aren't ideal. What am I talking about? That's the next secret:

Have a sanctuary

I'm not talking about a literal sanctuary with a pulpit and a large choir standing behind you. I'm talking figuratively, though I still mean a concrete place or places.

On most days, my sanctuaries are:

1) My office at work: not perfect because I am subject to interruptions (which is ok, after all, I am at work); this place works best after 5 pm when most folks have left for the day

2) My car during the commute: I have a fairly long commute (about 35 miles) and I use this commute in a number of ways. I listen to music or comedy, or, if I am lonely, I make phone calls (yes, I talk and drive...I have a Bluetooth earpiece that I only use for this particular activity, I feel stupid wearing it during the day,) or I think about things. This latter activity is what makes it a decent sanctuary

3) My time in the dining room or breakfast nook in the morning hours before the rest of the family wakes up; this is usually the time that I post here, too

4) Like most everyone, the water closet or the bathroom serves as a decent sanctuary. Unfortunately, to use this particular sanctuary usually requires a valid reason for being there (though I have faked it, just to get some quiet time...ssshhhh! Don't let Jocelyn know)

Those are my most common places. Some of you use these same places or you have a study/office at home, or you use a library, or maybe you go outside to a garden or just on a contemplative walk or bike ride.

I should explain what I mean by sanctuary.

For me, a sanctuary is a place where I can be alone with my thoughts, uninterrupted. I love other people. I am a pretty decent socializer, but each day, I need time to myself. I think we all do. This isn't time spent doing something alone, such as watching TV or playing a video game. This is time spent thinking or reading (not pulp novels (and, yes, I mean King, Steel, Rowling, Grisham, Grafton and all of the other blockbuster writers,) which I enjoy, but they don't count for this activity) things that trigger contemplative or critical thinking. I would also include creative endeavors such as writing, painting, sculpting or composing. Add crafts and technology, too, if they don't involve just following instructions.

We need to tap into ourselves and understand ourselves. Having a sanctuary is necessary to be able to do that effectively.

So, let me explain how this not-so-secret secret popped up. I started Christmas break back on the 20th. Before that I was fairly swamped with a particularly nasty problem at work which had been sapping most of my creative energy. After starting vacation, I was immediately thrust into holiday preparations. The goose is my responsibility (see previous post). The kids and I needed to do our annual foray into the shopping world for Jocelyn's gifts. This is excellent quality time with the three of us and it gives Jocelyn time to wrap.

Then there are parties and visits and the holiday itself. Then there are car problems and house problems and trips to plan and to cancel. And through all of this I don't have access to sanctuaries (1) and (2) above, because I am not going to work. My most important sanctuary, (3) was taken from me for about a week because the tables in both the dining room and nook were either in use for wrapping or holding precious holiday decor.

I don't have an office here at home. Well, we have an office, but it is used primarily by Jocelyn and Monica. It isn't my space. It does not work for me. I can't think in there.

I certainly couldn't spend hours in the bathroom.

After a while, this has taken a big toll on me mentally. I haven't been writing. I needed a sanctuary. I need a permanent one, too. But that is another activity for another day.

The Cratchits' Christmas Dinner

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone.

We had a goose yesterday. We try to recreate the Dicken's dinner scene from "A Christmas Carol" each year when we're at home. Though this year, I did not make a pudding. The stuffing was wild rice and chestnut. Delicious.

Here's an excerpt from the story:

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course-and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone-too nervous to bear witnesses-to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out. Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose-a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered-flushed, but smiling proudly-with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

'A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!'

Which all the family re-echoed.

'God bless us every one!' said Tiny Tim, the last of all.