For Your Soul
What we return to when we are sad, tired, out of ideas,
the comfort foods, songs on repeat,
movies we can quote every single line,
an outfit that makes us feel like we can do anything.
Favorite things are grounding
rooting us when we feel lost
or sick, or frightened.
~Caitlin Mallery
For Your Eyes
Beginning with Little Women, the books of Louisa May Alcott have held a special place in my heart and on my shelves. Recently my sister shared A Long Fatal Love Chase, an Alcott which I had never read or even heard of. My sister found the mass-market paperback at a local thrift store.
Alcott wrote this as a serialized story for a magazine and it has great potential for a miniseries. The main character Rosamund, gallivants around Europe under different names and disguises to hide from the man who becomes obsessed with her, and he always finds her. A page-turning thriller that still has a strongminded heroine to root for.
For Your Ears
Maybe it’s because I learned to play the piano, maybe it’s the abundance of piano music available, or the fact that it was the primary accompanist instrument of my upbringing, but piano music still provides a lot of comfort as a background.
For Your Taste Buds
As a kid, my favorite birthday meal was Swedish meatballs with Swedish potatoes, as introduced to me by my Kirsten cookbook. As an adult, my favorite meal is one that someone else cooks for me!
For Your Nose
As I currently attempt to wake my growing children every morning I will use the phrase, “Wakey, wakey, eggs, and bacey.” even if we are not having eggs or bacon for breakfast. That said the smell of bacon is a comfort smell, right up there with coffee, clean laundry, air after a rainstorm, and old books. Quick poll, which of those smells is in your favorites?
For Your Body
The thing about being an American is that we are from everywhere and nowhere. We collect DNA from different parts of the world. Many of us are neither indigenous nor immigrant, and so many of us have been transplanted from one part of America to another, whether by education, jobs, or something else. All these parts of ourselves are both familiar and new, just as today is both the oldest we have ever been and we still hold the memories of our younger selves.