Today is the start of a three-day soaking rain that will do wonders for the garden and the reservoirs. At this moment, my visibility to the west and north is about fifty feet and to the east its maybe 100 feet. The shroud of mist is upon us and the warmth of the living room is certainly a comfort with Buddy curled up on the top of the sofa back, making a warm furry headrest for me. It’s hard to imagine a more comfortable spot at this moment. I’ve got my bamboo laptop desk on my knees and my new iPad cranking away keeping me up-to-date on all the world news and yet simultaneously engaged in my writing and reminiscing. It all causes me to pause for a moment to consider all of the wonderful comforts we have in our modern lives and why we may occasionally feel the need to go outside our comfort zones just to experience the lack of those comforts so that we can appreciate them all the more.
Being cozy and as snug as a bug in a rug is a pretty innate sense we all have to some degree. When people talk to me about taking extended trips and possibly even giving up their home bases, I always wonder if they are so very different from me as that. When I think of travel, I am always thinking about the back end of the process, whether day-to-day or the the end of the trip overall. I know that one of the best parts of any trip is the part when you get home, take a deep breath, and relax back into whatever favorite comfort makes you the happiest. That return can be at the end of a motorcycle riding day, or perhaps a slog through a massive airport terminal. I think about the different feeling I have when we are in an Uber heading for the airport to venture forth on whatever adventure is in store for us and the contrasting feeling I have when we are in the Uber from the airport on our way home. We are usually anticipating seeing Buddy these days, which is always a pleasant thought, but we are also just slipping gradually into that warm bath of home and all the creature comforts that entails for us, from the warm shower, to the familiar chair or sofa and ultimately, the comfort of our own bed with its particular feel and warmth.
As much as the trappings of our lives are the things that come to mind when I describe our return home, I suspect that these feelings are primordial and would just as much be there if we were crawling into a snug dirt-floor cave to shelter us from the rain and wind of the wild. That scene in Castaway when Tom Hanks returns to Memphis after four years on his deserted tropical island tells it all. He finds less comfort in his hotel pillow-top bed and clean sheets than he does on the hard floor, curled up as he did for those four years in his damp, but comforting cave. So, comfort is clearly in the eye of the beholder but there are certain things we can call universal requirements. To begin with, we have to feel safe from the elements, those being temperature (both cold and heat), moisture, meaning dampness with cold or steam heat is an unpleasant sensation for humans. And then there is wind and general tempest. Until you have experienced a heavy windstorm, again, with the stinging needles of rain or sleet or the blistering sands of heat, you don’t realize the importance of shelter. And here’s the thing, Climate Change is changing everything. Human tolerance may not have changed, but expectations and definitions of comfort have certainly been affected by what we have all come to get used to. I’m sure Tom Hanks was pretty hot on his island in the early days, but soon enough, that discomfort was likely eclipsed by others that drove his discomfort to whatever extremes drove him to set forth on his dangerous journey of escape.
Kim and I got very lucky with this hilltop. When I drove by on Christmas morning 2011, the place looked special from the street and the only photos I could see online looked nice, but who knew. We bought the place without ever setting foot inside until the closing day. Over the next few years we tweaked this and that and started to feel pretty comfortable with the house for those 3-4 times a year we came out. Then in 2017 Kim renovated the kitchen from top to bottom to make it her perfect kitchen. For my part, I added a marvelous in-ground spa nestled in a grotto of boulders. We knew we would be moving out here soon enough full time. Both of us became so comfortable with the place that we decided it was time to come out and have it be our one and only home. That can’t happen unless you have a high degree of comfort with the place. Once we made the move I set about upgrading the house systems to be sure the heat, the air conditioning, the roof, the water system and anything else that contributed to our comfort was also top notch.
Since moving to the hilltop three years ago, we have both really settled into the place and comment to one another regularly about how fortunate we were to find it and how happy we are with it. I know it sounds trite to say that comfort is so important to us, but it is. Could we get comfortable elsewhere? I suppose. But the older one gets, the less one wants to sacrifice comfort for change. Our friends Faraj and Yasuko, who have a lovely home of their own design m on this hilltop, own another, higher lot. They say they may build a new home there. They are a few years older than me, so I have the most difficult time wondering why someone would set aside comfort at that age. But comfort comes in many flavors and who am I to suggest that Faraj and Yasuko should be comfortable as I define the word.
Being comfortable may be the most basic and important aspect of life that exists. In some ways it is the sine qua non of existence whether we are prepared to admit it or not. All I know for certain is that if comfort and peace are what we all want from life, Kim and I have achieved that on this misty hilltop.