Cozy; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 8

Cozy

Sometimes I think that coziness is the feeling we prize the most. Intense feelings are tempting (passion, thrill, anger), but for the long run, it’s coziness that is irresistible. Note the recent fad for the Danish “hygge” lifestyle.

When our Georgia was two she was given a hand-me-down pair of footed pajamas by her friend Madeleine, and Madeleine’s mother, Bina, had delivered the pajamas to Georgia. From then on Georgia called them her “Cozy Bina’s.”

We all have some sort of Cozy Bina in our lives. I like to dress up when I go out. But I am never really comfortable until I come home and change into my flannel nightie. And although I spend almost all day every day “doing” (I am a Capricorn), my favourite time of day is 8 p.m., when I, in flannel nightie, crawl between the heating-pad-warmed sheets with a book. Cozy. I wish we had a cozy nook in the house. I would feel less childish if I were curled up in, say, a window seat reading the currently favourite book. Bed should not be one’s only cozy place. But that’s how it is in this drafty house: the warmest, coziest spot is the bed, the room heated by a space heater, the bed by a heating pad.

We’re talking about winter coziness, of course. Can one be cozy in summer? In a shady hammock, maybe. Or on an expensive, comfortable chaise. As long as I can have my feet up I can be cozy. So I imagine myself outside on a warm day, sitting in half-sun, half-shade, my feet resting on the edge of the deck while my chair is a foot below, on the flagstone level.

Back to cozy feelings. I’ve been talking about physical coziness. But emotional coziness is also important. Perhaps you might imagine sharing a sofa with your current significant other, each absorbed in your own book or project—there for each other but allowing each other the space to grow and experience. That’s emotional coziness. Or a grandmother reading to the toddler in her lap. That’s a coziness that is probably more conscious in the grandmother but just as fulfilling, if unconscious, to the child.

Perhaps I need to spend more time cultivating coziness. A cozy feeling. To do this I’ll need to become aware of just what brings about the feeling, whether physically or emotionally, and then strive to put myself in that situation as often as possible.

Emotional coziness is present when you can feel yourself being relaxed and full. If you notice that your stomach is in knots, say, or your shoulders are up around your ears, then you are not cozy. You can counteract this first by consciously relaxing and then, if that doesn’t work, by changing your situation. Perhaps the people surrounding you don’t generate coziness. Imagine riding the crowded subway. No, not much coziness there. Perhaps a feeling of physical comfort and safety is a prerequisite—not in itself sufficient to elicit a cozy feeling, but without that feeling you’ll never reach the coziness.

Introverts can find coziness when alone or with one other person. Extroverts? I don’t know.  Maybe they don’t prize coziness.

Copyright (c) 2026 Ann Tudor

Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

ListenandLive: http://www.listenandlive.com/

Audible.Ca: go to https://www.audible.ca and search for Ann Tudor
Audible.Com: go to https://www.audible.com and search for Ann Tudor

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Cozy; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 8

Cozy

Sometimes I think that coziness is the feeling we prize the most. Intense feelings are tempting (passion, thrill, anger), but for the long run, it’s coziness that is irresistible. Note the recent fad for the Danish “hygge” lifestyle.

When our Georgia was two she was given a hand-me-down pair of footed pajamas by her friend Madeleine, and Madeleine’s mother, Bina, had delivered the pajamas to Georgia. From then on Georgia called them her “Cozy Bina’s.”

We all have some sort of Cozy Bina in our lives. I like to dress up when I go out. But I am never really comfortable until I come home and change into my flannel nightie. And although I spend almost all day every day “doing” (I am a Capricorn), my favourite time of day is 8 p.m., when I, in flannel nightie, crawl between the heating-pad-warmed sheets with a book. Cozy. I wish we had a cozy nook in the house. I would feel less childish if I were curled up in, say, a window seat reading the currently favourite book. Bed should not be one’s only cozy place. But that’s how it is in this drafty house: the warmest, coziest spot is the bed, the room heated by a space heater, the bed by a heating pad.

We’re talking about winter coziness, of course. Can one be cozy in summer? In a shady hammock, maybe. Or on an expensive, comfortable chaise. As long as I can have my feet up I can be cozy. So I imagine myself outside on a warm day, sitting in half-sun, half-shade, my feet resting on the edge of the deck while my chair is a foot below, on the flagstone level.

Back to cozy feelings. I’ve been talking about physical coziness. But emotional coziness is also important. Perhaps you might imagine sharing a sofa with your current significant other, each absorbed in your own book or project—there for each other but allowing each other the space to grow and experience. That’s emotional coziness. Or a grandmother reading to the toddler in her lap. That’s a coziness that is probably more conscious in the grandmother but just as fulfilling, if unconscious, to the child.

Perhaps I need to spend more time cultivating coziness. A cozy feeling. To do this I’ll need to become aware of just what brings about the feeling, whether physically or emotionally, and then strive to put myself in that situation as often as possible.

Emotional coziness is present when you can feel yourself being relaxed and full. If you notice that your stomach is in knots, say, or your shoulders are up around your ears, then you are not cozy. You can counteract this first by consciously relaxing and then, if that doesn’t work, by changing your situation. Perhaps the people surrounding you don’t generate coziness. Imagine riding the crowded subway. No, not much coziness there. Perhaps a feeling of physical comfort and safety is a prerequisite—not in itself sufficient to elicit a cozy feeling, but without that feeling you’ll never reach the coziness.

Introverts can find coziness when alone or with one other person. Extroverts? I don’t know.  Maybe they don’t prize coziness.

Copyright (c) 2026 Ann Tudor

Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

ListenandLive: http://www.listenandlive.com/

Audible.Ca: go to https://www.audible.ca and search for Ann Tudor
Audible.Com: go to https://www.audible.com and search for Ann Tudor

Virus-free.www.avg.com

Coincidence; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 23, no. 7

Coincidence

I've forgotten more than I remember. I've forgotten events, people, places. And when I'm reminded of them I'm positively shocked. Once my ex-husband said, "Oh, you remember so-and-so. The whole five years we were in Tuscaloosa, the two of you would get together every other week to play four-hand piano." Did I really do that? How could I have done it and yet have no memory of it at all?

A friend of mine from university days (I'll call her Joan) has become a new email friend. We were out of touch for fifty years but we took up that old friendship as if no time had passed. Of course, our current lives remain very much a mystery. Such friendships have a very modern feel: friendship, fifty years of no contact, and then, through the magic of email, a recreation of the friendship, somewhat hampered by a fifty-year gap during which we lived the bulk of our lives. Very odd. Very modern.

Anyway, Joan and her husband visited family in Florida for a few weeks, and while there they attended a community spaghetti supper. Such events offer random seating on benches set up at trestle tables, and you never know who will be sitting across from you. As one does at these community events, Joan immediately began making conversation with the couple across from her. Finally came the inevitable "Are you folks local?" "No," said the woman, "we're from Indiana."

"Oh," said Joan, "so are we. Where in Indiana do you live?"

"Near Kokomo and Frankfort."

"Did you grow up there?" asked Joan.

"No," said the woman, "we went to school in a little town called Delphi."

Well, Joan jumped into that with both feet. "Do you know the Johnsons? Dinty and Ann?"

"Well, of course we do. Jim here was in their brother Mike's class. And Ann might remember that I played baritone sax in the band. And I think their brother Dinty was drum major for the marching band. And there were some other Johnsons, too."

Yes, indeed there were. A whole heap of other Johnsons. Joan was beside herself with excitement, imagining my response to this bit of Florida serendipity.

Now, was this not an amazing coincidence? Leaving aside the fact that Dinty played the baritone horn and was never the drum major (although our sister Sari was, a couple of years later), there was my old friend Joan in the presence of a couple who remembered me from my high school days, however imperfectly.

And now I have to say that "however imperfectly" they remember me and mine, they're way ahead of me. I have no memory of this baritone sax player. Her husband's name rings no bells, despite the fact that he was in my brother Mike's class, two years behind me.

I told Joan how little I remember (i.e., nothing) of her new friends but asked her not to tell them that. The baritone sax player had a memory of being once in our kitchen where my mother, Eileen, was deep-frying rosettes with her rosette irons for a crowd of kids (probably all the band members). I still have Eileen's rosette irons (though it has been 25 years since I used them).

A chastening experience, this. We're back to the memory thing. I do, however, have the excuse that high school was so unpleasant for me that I have made a conscious effort to delete the whole period from my mind. No "Control-Save" for THAT era.

Still speaking of memory, I told my husband recently—after my umpteenth trudge from basement to main floor to second floor to basement to second floor to main floor—that my faulty memory is the must frequent occasion of exercise in my life. My weak memory is making my heart strong.

Copyright (c) 2026 Ann Tudor

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