At Ease
Sensory notes my guests are teaching me
Something I’m noticing with having guests are the subtle bits of energy, sensory cues and atmosphere that they lend to a space.
You give energy and you get it back. Today’s guests are in from LA. I always leave open the kitchen windows, the back kitchen door, and the nook doors. I usually have on music of some sort. Everywhere at first. Then on a lower volume only in the kitchen in the morning hours.
They took a red eye here to attend their son’s graduation and I went on the back deck last night after a walk at the arboretum to pick some lettuce and kale for my dinner. I noticed the sound of the shower coming from an open window on the second floor. This pleases me to no end, because they picked up where I left off.
I was wandering around the kitchen after lunch while they’d run home today to take a shower in between activities and I paused. Jazz music coming from the bathroom. People from my own heart. I went outside to take out the trash. I looked up and the bedroom windows are open. People make a space feel alive and anew with their own energy on occasion.
The other time I noticed this (in a way that their energy lent me some) was a few guests ago. I walked out of my room at night to go on a walk in Gatton Park to see the gigantic flowers that were here on an art installation from a group of French artists. The house smelled divine . The most wonderful smells permeated the entire second floor and the stairwell. From whatever her shower was. A mix maybe of things I have laid out for them in the bathroom. Oils maybe? Crabtree and Evelyn verbena things. A rose lotion? A secret something I know nothing about. It bled through the whole upstairs and then in part inspired me to do something different in my own right. I decided that on this rainy day, I’d make myself a tea.
I have collected a variety of loose leaf teas that I forgot to label. I went with one that had rose petals and made myself a cup. Then I had a thought . My guest’s husband was downstairs watching a hockey game and I thought maybe she’d like one too. I messaged her and said that I laid a variety of tea downstairs . Some a mystery. She came down and made a cup at some point. In a robe and the most as ease . You can feel when people are at ease and it puts you at ease too.
They warned me it may storm, told me I should take an umbrella, but I took my chances. Went on my walk and got back just before the storm. I ran at least a side walk’s length to get back to the front door.
The worst, but most magnificent thunderstorm rolled in. I suggested dark and stormies and while everyone was tempted, the vibe was still most certainly tea all around. We could barely hear each other speak over the rain sound coming through the open kitchen windows. The nook door. But somehow intimately gathered in the evening we talked about the importance of gathering . Of old ways of doing things.
Ivett was born in Hungary and grew up in Berlin. Germany. They had just been there the week before. They described going to various bed and breakfasts back in the day in Scotland. They said different people in each room. All gathering for breakfast in the morning. The host asking what they’d like. Full Scottish breakfast. How over the years the platform of Airbnb has changed. What started out as an experience meeting strangers has evolved into a void empty space and a key code.
I feel happy that I’m bringing things back around the other way again. For those that appeals to. Even the seasonal dinners I’m doing are structured this way. I join the guests. If guests are staying at the bed and breakfast I invite them to join in. And the people that book know it’s “a small intimate group of people “ not a private dinner, unless requested. I feel like bringing a little wild card back in the mix is a good thing. People are meant to gather.
In a way, they are influencing me to change a few things around myself. Maybe, I’ll open the windows to the bathroom too. And leave the guest room window open. Mostly, they are letting me know I’m going in the right direction.
I’m delighted to find the next morning, as a day has passed since writing these first paragraphs, all the windows open. A candle and matches moved in the bathroom. The house has come into its own today. With the breeze coming in from all directions, I think I’ll leave it just as it is for my next guests.
