When I was a little girl I knew all the spots in the house that would warm up for periods of time when the sun would stream through the windows. The best spot was in our front room and the bright warm spot would move as the sun changed position throughout the day. My mom liked to move the furniture around often so sometimes the spot landed on a couch or a chair, but my favorite was when it warmed up a piece of the orange and brown variegated shag carpet. I would curl my body up into whatever size and shape the warm spot was and watch the dust particles float around in the sunbeams. I loved to read or daydream or sleep, and I preferred to have it quiet. Being alone was especially appreciated.
During the winter there were more opportunities to lay in the sun, because the shade trees on each side of the house were bare of leaves and they were more accommodating for my need to feel the sunbeams. In the summer you had to be on top of things and know just when to be there for snippets of time that the sun would peak through a gap in the leafy branches. I actually could have used the warm spots more in the hot Southern Utah summer, because our swamp cooler, and later central air-conditioning, worked quiet well in that part of the house. During the winter we always had a blazing fire in our black coal stove that wasn’t too far from the front window so warmth wasn’t as much of an issue. But I wasn’t picky. I would enjoy it any time of year as the light beams looked the same no matter what season it was.
In all the moves I have made in the years since my childhood I still watch for those special spots in each home I live in. In some homes I have found several, but in others it might take weeks or months to discover a new spot.
In the house we are currently in, a former owner must have been very energy efficient as he planned the trees, bushes, and positioning of the windows and eaves so that not as many of those sunbeams would make it into the house to heat it up. We have been in homes where the air conditioning couldn’t keep up well enough to properly cool the house during our extended summers but that has not been a problem where we are now. While the economical side of me appreciates this, the nostalgic side longs for more sunny spots to get my fix.
A few months after we moved here a tree blew down outside a window in what we call “the piano room.” We were very sad that it was gone as it had housed a colony of busy carpenter bees. I would sit at the window with my little boys each evening and watch as they all flew home for the night and disappeared into the holes they had worked so hard to dig. I knew I would miss those twenty minutes of spying into their busy lives each day. But it didn’t take long to see the upside as it has become the one spot in the house that now has a good sun spot to sit in for a portion of the morning. I don’t take advantage of it nearly enough, but even just knowing it is there when I need I need a few quiet meditative minutes to myself is enough.
What spot do you go to relax and find peace?
Whims 