Home and happiness...

It's no secret that I love this old house. It suits me like a favorite old pair of blue jeans, comfortable, snug and reliable. Recently a customer told me that she coveted this place, and it made her sad that she couldn't have it. I've been thinking about that. I've been to her home, and it's lovely, tucked back in some quiet woods, spotlessly clean and pleasant. It occurred to me, that perhaps what her heart longed for here is the palpable happiness within these walls. I can't tell you how it has come to be here, only that it is.

I read this poem today, and it resonated.

The Work of Happiness

By May Sarton
(1912 - 1995)

I thought of happiness, how it is woven
Out of the silence in the empty house each day
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.
No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
But the tree is lifted by this inward work
And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours
And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:
The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,
White curtains softly and continually blown
As the free air moves quietly about the room;
A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall --
These are the dear familiar gods of home,
And here the work of faith can best be done,
The growing tree is green and musical.

For what is happiness but growth in peace,
The timeless sense of time when furniture
Has stood a life's span in a single place,
And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir
The shining leaves of present happiness?
No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,
But where people have lived in inwardness
The air is charged with blessing and does bless;
Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.