My family was in Iowa celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas over the long weekend. The house filled as the weekend approached; we were celebrating Christmas on Saturday. On Thanksgiving night, our sons and three of their cousins were spread throughout the living room on the couches and on a queen-size air mattress, plus one sleeping bag. In my logistical planning of where all those teenage bodies – plus one a bit younger in age but a teenager in spirit – would land to sleep, I had one free bed in the room where Bill and I slept, and I thought it would be fine for our younger son Liam. Not so.
“Mom, I’ll miss out! Just grab a sleeping bag for me, and I’ll sleep on the floor next to the air mattress.” So his long-legged body stretched out as he planned, virtually under the Christmas tree. And close to the action of giggles and whispers long after I had gone to bed.
Any more, I bow out quietly with a good night and little direction for when the crew should go to sleep. This was a short three-day visit with the cousins together. Rather than “Lights out in ten minutes!” direction, I found myself quietly thinking, “Make the most of it.”
Most mornings around five, Dad and I met at the kitchen table. We dared to turn a light on, knowing the glow would shine into the living room. We had limited whispered conversation until Dad turned the news on at six and sat close to the TV to hear it. By seven, a couple other people had joined us and only the soundest of sleepers stayed asleep in the living room.
After our Christmas celebration, families dispersed. Sunday night, Will and Liam were left alone on the couches. Monday morning I woke up at four. I thought if I left the lights off that Dad might stay in bed. I made coffee by the light of my phone. Rather than wrap myself into the glowing light of a screen, I decided to just sit quietly in a soft chair in the dark for a while.
With the heat set around 64 degrees, I wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket. The only sound was that of the forced-air sporadically coming through the floor vents. How many times had I sat hovered over that vent on dark winter mornings? Forty years ago, my siblings – my younger sister and two younger brothers – would get out of bed around six o’clock on school days. The first one up would turn the thermostat up a bit to get the hot air flowing through those vents, then grab a big blanket or quilt. That would go over the vent and capture the air in a kind of flat balloon. In minutes, there would be four of us tucked in around the edges sharing this warm cocoon. We would have smaller blankets wrapped around our backsides to keep the opposite sides of our bodies somewhat balanced in warmth. We wouldn’t speak; we were like reptiles with a single goal: laying in the sun to warm up.
Along the path to this pocket of heat, someone would’ve closed the bathroom doors so that room would be toasty when it was time for my sister or me to shower. I remember little conversation about who would shower. Perhaps something short like, “I went first yesterday, so you go first today.” Neither of us looked forward to breaking out of that warm tub of air. But 6:20 was the first shower shift. We could both make it through the bathroom and get on the bus at 7:20 if we stuck to that 6:20 start time.
Since we had the air encapsulated under the blanket, we could get the furnace to run for a solid twenty minutes. None of the warmth registered on the thermostat across the room from where we were tethered. The ten-foot journey from the vent to the bathroom door was icy. Yet when we opened that bathroom door, the warmth of a sauna would hit our faces.
We don’t huddle over that air vent any more, but we can drum up the same early morning warmth in the bathroom.