Waking Up Your House

My Daily Ritual for Rousing Our Home

I am frequently the first person up in our home. Occasionally, Alistair will beat me to it, morning dove that he is (like his mama). Most often, though, it’s me who pads into the kitchen first, wool-slippered and sock-ed during colder months, slide-clad when it’s hot and humid and the feet demand liberation.

Many routines, over time, become ever so gently refined into rituals, intended or not. They transform from mere acts of habit, undulating and slowly stretching into behaviors imbued with a sacrosanct quality. Such is the case for me and the manner in which I wake up our home.

Far from a burden, it has become an act of devotion. A way to silently show the inhabitants of our home (human and otherwise), that I am happy to be of service to them. To make my love for them manifest, through action and remembrance.

It is also an enduring gift I give myself anew each morning. Because, as the saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup. Or, as the sign my mom used to have up in her home read: If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

I rouse the animals, the humans, the air, in winter the wood stove, and the very house itself. Here’s how I do it.

*Because they simply would abide no alternative, the very first thing I do upon rising after turning on the lights in the living room, dining room, and kitchen, is give the dogs and cats their breakfasts. Two dogs and two cats can offer up quite the chorus of insistent requests, so meeting their needs is paramount.

*Once that is complete, I pour a small amount of kombucha into a ceramic cup. I then set it aside to fizz a bit and come slightly to room temp.

*Next, I collect the electric kettle, fill it with water, plug it in, and turn it on.

*While the water heats, I set out two ceramic mugs (often the same ones, occasionally rotated within a small collection of options Glenn prefers and those I like), and place a bag of PG Tips, Barry’s, Typhoo, or some other strong black tea in each mug. I get out the honey, the tea bag squeezer, a spoon and wooden spoon rest, and set those all on the counter beside the mugs. During the school year/school week, I also make a mug of tea for Huxley. Over the summer, he sleeps in and I wait to make his until he finally emerges from upstairs, poofy-haired and groggy-faced.

*Once heated to a full, rolling boil, I pour the water into the mugs, and set the microwave alarm for 6 minutes.

*I then set out Glenn’s medications for the morning in a small wooden bowl, placing it on the counter beside his mug of tea.

*Once the timer sounds, I remove the tea bags, squeezing them to extract as much of the volatile oils on the tea leaves as possible, put the bags with the compost, and then add honey and half and half to my mug (Glenn completes his tea’s flavoring once he comes into the kitchen).

*Having attended to the animal and human needs, I turn to those of the house. If it’s during the colder months of the year (for us here in the mountains of Western North Carolina, that’s typically mid-October to roughly early April), I’ll open the wood stove door, remove any ashes and place them in the ash bin, and either feed a new log if there are active cinders, or add newspaper and kindling to begin a new fire.

*Next, I light a candle on the kitchen counter that is located behind the mugs. If it’s the school week, I omit this step, including it instead during the summer break and on weekends. The scent of the candle always parallels the season at hand.

*After the candle is lit (the aforementioned days notwithstanding), I choose an incense stick to burn. We have an abundant collection, so I make my selection based either purely on whim, or desired fragrance to dovetail with the time of year we’re in. In so doing, I wake up the house itself. I have long felt that, in addition to the 4 humans and 4 furry creatures that live in our little bungalow on a knob in the woods, the house itself is another member of the family. The house becomes roused from its slumber, gently brought into a state of kinesis after one of dormancy overnight via the delivery of fragrance. The scent also guides my awareness back into my body and out of my monkey mind and its thoughts, jumping from branch to branch as it is wont to do.

*I blow out the candle, allow the incense to permeate, and begin mapping out our day.

These acts, in combination, constitute my morning ritual of rousing my home. From there, it’s on to the needs of the day, whether that entails a school run, out the door a bit after 7 am, a bit of stretching and weight-lifting and crunches, or a languid amble across social media and news headlines. The day dictates next steps.

We begin slowly out of the gate here in the cove, then move up to a gentle trot before breaking into a full run. That gentle transition from nighttime to morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. It is my silent, reliable benediction for constancy, nourishment, focus, safety, and, later, momentum for my home and its inhabitants.

If you’d like to read up on how I put our house to sleep, I wrote about that, too!