by A. f. bradley

Created on: July 15, 2008

Favorite Room

I live in a house with many wonderful rooms.

It sits deep in the country, bucolic; stands two stories tall with a cozy hearth, big attic, and a solid foundation. About 200 years old with a nice patina, it remains in great condition

Both because of age and design the house blends elegantly in with the surrounding landscape. Walking across the lawn you can practically hear a faint clicking of horse's hooves coming up the long dirt drive, or smell cows which grazed these fields of generations long past. Raising a family here gives us the sensation of history unfolding; that we are the newest chapter of a long story.

Our front entrance is nice and bright. The sun spills in easily through the large bay windows. During a lazy afternoon, we like to lie on the living room floor and watch careless motes float through sunbeams, letting the day's warmth wrap us in a comfortable hug.

Descending into the basement you can feel the air moisten and cool. Rocks and boulders make up the foundation walls with their eclectic sizes, shapes, and earthen tones. In the summer our children like to go down to the cellar and press their foreheads against the cool moist stones.

We get our water from a dug well. Always cold and clear, it has a great flavor: mineral, organic. Our daughter fetches fresh water in the mornings. She has a penchant for mornings that I envy. As she is often the first one up it seemed fitting to give her this chore.

Our son is growing up so quickly, this summer he asked me if he could chop this winter's wood. At the end of each day when his mother stops by to see the progress, I can see his chest fill with the pride only a young boy can feel on his first steps toward manhood.

But I digress; let me tell you more about the house. The stairs to the second floor have a great deep wooden creek in them, the kitchen has a dumb waiter, and the garden overflows with heirloom herbs venturing beyond its sinking stone borders.

Our bedroom is private, spacious, and bright; discretely removed from the rest of the house. The pine walls are ribboned with celestry windows, except over the head of our bed, where a crescent window frames mountains in the distance. We also have a sky light, and as the moon passes over, it bathes us in blue light.

Connecting directly to our bedroom is the master bathroom, and it's terrific. The floor is tiled in a mosaic of blues and whites. A polished steel sink sits in a slab of deep green granite which makes up a lengthy counter top. In the shower a stained glass window looks out over the forest. Our children once found a fern in the woods and brought it home. My wife planted it in some sphagnum moss and hung it in the shower with a wire basket. I like it there.

Yes this is a wonderful house, and when I am inside it I feel embraced by content- though I have yet to tell you the best part. At night, in bed, when I look into my wife's eyes I see my favorite room: it is strength, happiness, acceptance, and unconditional love; it is the safety of our children, the foundation of our past, the clarity of our future, the love of my life. When I look into her eyes I see my favorite room. I have a house, but best of all I have a home.

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