Daily Rituals

I'm a very routine oriented person: I may not do the same thing at the same time every day, but certain elements need to show up during the day or I feel off...somethings just not right with the world.

One of these routines, one that I got from my Mother and probably she got from her Mother before her, is the simply daily ritual of opening and closing the house.

There's something about going around the house and opening the curtains to start the day that's very grounding for me: almost a surrendering of sleep and containment, with this gesture we're ready to face the day. If I'm feeling particularly goony, this is accompanied by "Let the Sun Shine In" warbled horribly off-key.

I may be particularly goony a lot, as my baby now sings that when she opens curtains.

At night the routine is reversed. We are home and safe, content and complete in ourselves: it's time to shut the world outside out. I make my rounds just before bedtime: ensuring the doors are locked, the windows latched. Even though we live in the middle of nowhere, and are probably safer here than any place I've ever lived, it's still the routine. It makes me feel safe and secure before I drop off to dreamland.

I do this most days. There are days I miss of course: those rare times when my husband is employed in the wee hours of the morning, he opens the house. Those rarer times that I finish work before 10 pm, I might descend the office stairs to discover the house is already shut tight. But those are the exceptions.