Isabel Gillies - Cozy: The Art Of Arranging Yourself In The World

Contents

For my parents, Linda and Arch Gillies

Contents

A BOOK CALLED COZY . Really? On a planet where people are hungry and elephants endangered, perhaps other books are needed. But this is the book I thought to write because being cozy makes me feel capable of getting through to the next moment, to help another, to accomplish something importanteven to love. Its easy to dismiss cozy as a confluence of hot chocolate, a roaring fire, and falling snowmagical, tangible treats you can find in a ski lodge in Vermont. Or, you might think coziness happens if youre lucky. Say you inherit your fathers fishermans sweater, or the stars align and you get to hold hands with a wonderful person. But I dont think its only physical things or fortunate circumstances. I think cozy is a deeper beat, derived from a parent, a friend, a teacher, or your own good instincts.

Our three children, Hugh, Sage, and Thomas, are growing up faster than I thought. Life with them is getting away from me like a darting firefly.

On a chilly autumn day a couple of years ago, I was standing at the stove thinking about the kids. They would soon roll in, one after another. You know teenagerstheyre awesome, but they have their stuff. They grapple with life, and like rock climbers on a multipitch cliff, they search for the next place to grab hold of and hoist. Sometimes I can help them, sometimes I cant, but I thought that at the very least, it would be cozy for them to be met with something simmering on a burner when they flung open the door. Whatever mama blunder I would inevitably make later that evening, or homework tangle they would be working through, the soup vibe in the apartment would be a cozy baseline supporting all of it, even if it didnt register with them.

Standing over the pot pulverizing the burnt-orange chunks into stock (if you dont know how to make stock, I will tell you at the end of this bookI make stock almost as much as I brush my hair), I imagined what was to come. In a blink, these kids would no longer be living with us, and however imperfect I am as a mother, I think Im pretty good at making them cozy. Soon it would be up to them. Biting on the end of the wooden spoon, I worried: Did they know how? Sometimes I would find them reading with the overhead light blaring and shade pulled down. Their beds were often left unmade. I didnt think any of them could make a proper cup of tea. Had I taught them? Did they understand that coziness doesnt just appear out of thin air? That its a constant endeavor, it changes in the light, it readjusts as you grow, and when you get to know yourself it takes on new meanings?

Cozy is such an inherent part of my life it feels like something everyone on the planet has a relationship withbut do they? And what is it really? I can rattle off a list of what I identify as cozy: cooking almost anything, community gardens, study hall, jury duty, paper coffee cups, the bus, chance meetings, reading glasses, practicing, Korean frozen pancakes, rivers, acoustic guides, lunch with girlfriends, reading aloud to a kid, taking a bath, handwriting, mailboxes, public school, TV, a made bed, writing on a train, birds, cobblestones, marriage, copyediting, the click of a radio dial, fog, toasted bran muffins, singing, the royal family, going to the movies, ferries, X-ray robes, uniforms, cookbooks. All of it is absolutely soothing to me, and as easy to overlook as pencils on a desk. Its probably best not to overlook pencils, though.

Why are pencils cozy? And does everyone think fog is cozy? Perhaps not. Then what do they think is cozy? Where does it all come from? What I started to think about on that November afternoonand what Im now convinced ofis how coziness stems from the very core of our individuality. Cozy is an attitude, not a thinga shortcut to bringing the most essential parts of ourselves with us wherever we go. Once you put your finger on what makes you feel solid, supported, and calm, you can arrange yourself in a world that can be cold, awkward, dangerous, inauthentic, and unpredictable. And it doesnt have to be dramaticthere is an infinite need for coziness in any ordinary old day. Either way, coziness is something you can name and put to use, even at lifes darkest hours. Perhaps its in those hours that we most need to call on our authentic selves.

Digging a little deeper into the word, I unearthed themes: connection, control, temperature, and organization. During the writing of this book, I thought about these themes every day, and how I could use them. They were very useful in more dire times when cozy was elusive, like in Denmark, or when my father was ill.

We might not always have enough natural warmth, fortitude, or strength to traverse every bump on the road. But if we know how to create cozy using whats inside us, we can search for it on the outside no matter where we are, and each day stack the odds in our favor for happiness and, on some days, survival.

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A COUPLE OF years ago, I signed up to chaperone a trip with Hughs ninth-grade Global Studies class. The humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders set up an interactive exhibition in Lower Manhattan to shine a light on the global refugee crisis and the more than sixty-eight million displaced peoples across the globe. For people like me who needed a wake-up call, they did a spectacular job using video, photographs, digital technology, and real materials brought from refugee camps and rescue missions. They also told true stories of refugees that I will remember forever.

Our leader was Dr. Stewart, an ob-gyn who had worked mostly in Sudan, South Sudan, and Nigeria. Her first name was Africa. We were all assigned a specific displaced persons identity. Africa showed us a wall covered with laminated pictures of personal belongings, and asked us to choose five items we would take along. When people are forced to leave their homes, they often have only minutes to prepare for an unknowable journey. They must decide quickly what they will want or need. Medicine? A mobile phone? A photograph? She told us that many people, although they know deep down they may never see their home again, bring the keys to their front door. We had five minutes to pick a few laminated pictures off the wall. I chose sneakers and my passport.

I am not qualified to write about the refugee crisis, nor will I try. But coziness comes into play here, and this exhibit demonstrated how its necessary and at the very core of who we areworldwide. At the end of the experience, bruised and stunned by the exhibition of cholera beds and rubber rafts, we visited a reconstruction of a tent from a refugee camp. I bent down and peered around the flap at the opening. The very first place my eyes fell was a neatly made bed. Next to it was another, smaller tidy bed. There was a rag doll lying with its carefully crafted head resting on the lumpy sack of a pillow. I looked at Africa, and she said, smiling to the group, Moms and Dads make toys for their children out of whatever they can findits amazing, really, what you see. The teenagers crossed their arms around their notebooks, looking shamefully at the pitiful conditions. Some took pictures with their phones, and a few of the girls leaned on one another, reminding me of scenes in newspapers when something downright awful has happened in a high school. What I saw in the tent was evidence of the four themes of cozy.

Excuse me, I said to Africa, Im sorry, butwell, Im the class-trip mom?

Yes, she said patiently.

Well, please dont take this the wrong way... Her eyebrows lifted in the way people do when you apologize before youve even spoken.