Making Things Pretty
“Many women, even after considerable energy devoted to education and career, long to stay home and take care of their family. They feel torn away when they leave home, as if a part of them gets left behind—and that feeling is far stronger for them than the feeling they have when they leave the outside world and feel a little torn about that. I think most people understand that you can’t have everything, and they make a choice.
But many of these same women do go just a teensy bit insane when they stay home (and I say this because I was sort of this way myself, although I had no outside life I cared anything about at all). And part of that insanity is that it is truly difficult to live somewhere that’s probably far from anyone you know or are related to, to have no friends who are willing to do what you are doing, and to spend all your time with small children.
Part of the conflict, though, has to do with not understanding or not being willing to commit yourself to the little tasks that make up this life. We talked earlier about seeing things the way others do when they look into your home. The prettiness over the sink is about how, when you finally give in to the reality of your indispensable role, you can allow yourself to be happy; what you see is a little reminder. You are in the heart of your home, looking out.
Just as I suppose a physician or an architect has some little tedious tasks that, when done with finesse and elegance, become pleasurable, so the wife and mother has the ability to turn something that seems like drudgery into a pleasure, and even a prayer.
This is not just in the head or the attitude, though, like a kind of mind game. It is very material and palpable. The goodness of little things is visual and appeals to the other senses as well; things have to look nice and smell nice and feel nice and sound nice and taste nice for them to be felt by us to be nice! (Mind that I’m not saying they have to be expensive or nice according to worldly standards, necessarily. Just fitting.)
What you see when you stand at the sink could be a confirmation of the respect you have for what you are doing, however humble it may appear to others. So that’s why I say to make the area around your sink pretty, according to what you think is pretty! And not just pretty, but maybe even a place where your prayers rise like incense to Heaven even while your hands are in soapy water.”
- The Summa Domestica, Order and Wonder in Family Life, Vol. 3, Housekeeping by Leila Marie Lawler
I read this chapter and just had to share it with all of you. I had hoped to find it on her blog, but the version there isn’t quite as fleshed out as this one, so, because I think this is just such a beautiful and perfect chapter, I typed it up for all of you to read. When I first started reading it, I was underlining and underlining and bracketing and suddenly realized the whole chapter was solid gold.
Side Note: my dear Mrs. Lawler is a Roman Catholic, and we’re not. Your kitchen sink isn’t an altar to the Lord, but you can absolutely turn it into a place that encourages praise, and you can absolutely pray while your hands are in soapy water.
What I loved about this was the honesty that our work in the home is filled with conflict, but that much of that can be made easier with acknowledgment, commitment, and making things pretty. Never underestimate how much easier it is to tend to a nice place. This is much like disciplining your children, it makes them nicer to be around, not just for the rest of us, but for you. If you put in the work of training your children, you might actually enjoy being around them. If you don’t belittle the beautification of even the most temporary things, but follow God’s example of making all things beautiful you will enjoy your home more.
“The prettiness over the sink is about how, when you finally give in to the reality of your indispensable role, you can allow yourself to be happy; what you see is a little reminder. You are in the heart of your home, looking out.”
We, homemakers, are the hearts of our home, and we do spend a fair amount of our time at the kitchen sink and in the kitchen. Make it a place you like to be. If you like to be there, so will your people. And if they like to be there, so will the stranger. Don’t make this a matter of sheer willpower alone. Yes, work on your attitude, but even our good God promises rewards if we obey. And we all seek to give our children things that they like as well as what is good for them. Don’t act as if you can just magically have a good attitude, as if you are only a soul. You are soul and body, and so you work on the inside and the tactile outside.
Make the sink pretty. Surrounded it with plants, pictures, cute soap dispensers, favorite quotes, or just a bird feeder at the window to give you a fun view. Don’t have a window, the same still applies. Find plants that enjoy a bit of humidity and place them near the sink. Again, all kitchens have a view, make sure yours is pretty.
Ladies, we don’t make our homes pretty just for ourselves. This isn’t an opportunity to be selfish. If we do that we will sow seeds of bitterness in our homes the first time someone messes up our pretty thing, or our husbands tell us they think what we’ve done is ugly. We make things pretty for the people in the home. Beauty is good for all the souls around our hearths, not just ours. Make sure you have an open heart in creating beauty, not a closed one. A closed one demands me and mine. An open one says we and us.
I love what Leila says about not looking to the world. Times are hard and budgets are tight. It’s time to not worry about what Pinterest says is pretty. Use your imagination, trade art for art with other homemakers, and create beauty by making your little corner of the world a place to call home with you at the center as the tender of the hearth.
