We are creatures of habit.
Whenever visitors come to the farm they very quickly latch onto a space of their own. Their chair at the table, their relaxing space in the couch, a space to leave their toothbrush, a bed for sleeping. Any time we enter a foreign area we immediately try to wriggle our way in, naming a corner as our own, whether it is a seat on a plane, a piece of wall in a public area, a side of the bed. 
Who do you know who sleeps on a different side of the bed whenever they feel like it. Or loses their pillow. Or sits in a different chair at dinner time each night. Or does not care which cup holds their coffee.
This need in us to build systems and habits and familiar spaces is as old as the world and truly common for all peoples everywhere. Even nomads have their favourite camel. And shoppers their favourite door. And drivers their favourite way through town. 
It is the same for cows. They love things to be predictable.
Yesterday I turned the electric fence off at the West side so I could use the weed eater to clear all the long grass from beneath the wire. Then I went back up to the house without turning the current back on.
When my sister and I walked, in the dark after dinner, around to the West side to check the cows we found both the new cows in a field where they should not have been – peering sadly at me through the wires – and all the animals who had lived here a while and developed their systems and habits around the hot wire and knew where their chair for sitting on was, were still where I left them. 
So I wonder whether we – you and I – are still working behind our own electric fences, though they have long since been turned off and we are just not brave enough to try to get through. We have forgotton what it is like to be new. We are sitting in the chairs we have claimed, nice and safe. Not allowing the change. 
What do you think?
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
51 responses to “A chair of my own”
The fence of the pigsty on the farm was old and tattered. It was a visual barrier, but that was all. Any new piglet with an ounce of curiosity would be able to squirm its way thru in an instant. My Grandfather showed me the electric fence that was woven within the ancient boards. And it wasn’t more than five inches from the ground. Nose level on the new piggy’s. As a little girl, I watched them grow fat and sassy with the summer sun. Squeeling in delight with every new experience. By fall they were large and boisterous, and would be able to step over that five inch wire with ease. However, long ago they had learned the magic of the heat and shocking pain, and even though they were long legged and stronger than any fence, that little wire still contained them.
People have been telling me for the past few years that I have been selling myself short. They have been telling me that I deserve to live better and can if I accept the good things that are available to me. I think I put up my own fences years ago without knowing it.
So true. Change is a wonderful thing – it turns your perspective upside down and sideways. Back in the day when I was an interior architect, and I had a floor plan or design problem that confounded me. I would turn my drawing upside down (pre-autocad!) and see the same space in an entirely new light. The design would inevitably flow from there.
I enjoy your writing about life on your farm. I also love the pictures! That is something I aspire to get better at.
I like adventure, but walking into a familiar room and using my favorite cup is comforting. You have to step over your boundaries every now and then. Be a renagade cow.
Both.. truly both.. I like my chair, my cup, my space..
But, I was raised in a way that meant, that it always feels like its just a “holding” that the space comes with me, that its in me..
By the time I was 19, I had moved 67 times in my young life, by the time I meet my hubby, at 25, I had moved 81 times.. I was perfectly fine with packing my wagon and moving towns, I was fine with following work, or moving for work.. swinging down where I needed to for this or that..
When I meet my husband, he said to me.. we will need to move lots of work and I grunted and said.. Home is where I make it.. and then we only moved four times since we married, from Alberta, to NWT, to Nunavut and then to Ontario and here I am on the farm.. 11 years this spring on the farm..
the longest I have ever EVER stayed in once place.. the longest I have ever set down roots and still I get the itch, the drive to chance, to break the fence, to move.. to create new space.. I do it now by learning new things, changing this or that plan..
But I will not hide from the truth.. I get the must break that fence.. smash it down and get that jolt far more often them most will.. Its in my blood.. It is very interesting to see the effects it has on both myself and my older brother who like me.. moved and moved and moved and then settled (having only moved maybe six times since he married and started a family) where our baby brother much younger then us.. who had the most stable “childhood” and went to the same school, still lives in the same town..
My older brother and I went to Europe on trips and loved it.. we would and can and have moved to different parts of the country or to different countries to work and live.. baby brother.. same friends, same town, same everything.. he loves it… our eyes glaze.. 🙂
So while it seems like I am settled and quiet… it just hides the fires that burn slow, till they come forth again..
The moment the barista calls out my order before I order it, I call a different order. I will not be a routine double shot full fat no foam. … back when I ordered coffee from a coffee shop. I always mix it up, I rarely do the same thing the same way. But, I’m working on it. Still rehearsing at the moment.
we all have little habits in our lives as do our animals who live with us. Our Lucy is a total habit cat- gets up at a certain time of day and expects her breakfast at that time- I obligingly obey and feed her and then give her some fur ball stuff and a little greenie treat. She then promptly goes to the same spot for her morning nap. Depending on what time of day it is- she naps in certain places through the day. She’s a funny cat. We love her.
I like my own coffee mug and certain routines, but I find I do best when I’m given a change in scenery regularly. We’ve made a mistake with this last move, but instead of panicking about now have two houses to sell instead of just one we are resolving to rent next time and planning our next move. Most people would think we’re insane; we just moved in to this house four and a half months ago, but we would be insane to stay. We’re the cows on the other side of the electric fence. I hope we always push our boundaries and try the next thing. Well-meaning people have laid the “the grass isn’t always greener on the other side” argument at our feet to try to convince us that safer is better – and we’ve fallen for it – but you know what? Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t, but that’s what the next move is for, to try again. The world needs both kinds of cows. 🙂
Living alone for eighteen years now, the chairs and beds are all mine. I move from one bedroom to another during the year and the beds are all facing in different directions, giving me a different view. It is also a way to keep the beds aired for when I have visitors. I move from chair to chair as the mood takes me but in the depth of winter my favourite chair is close to my flickering fire.
The one thing I have learned is that if you sit at home dwelling on an ache, pain or problem, it grows to fill the space. If you get up and go out, you see or talk to other people who carry heavier burdens and your own shrinks to a more realistic manageable degree.
Some fences have us very well trained. It is hard to change and live comfortably with it. But, it can be done.
I’m an unfortunately selective creature of habit. I still have yet to find a chair in our house I prefer and we’ve lived here for going on three years. I do have my favorite coffee cup and pillow of course. I try hard to break down any barriers similar to an electric fence but, probably just like the cows, it’s difficult to realize the chance has presented itself.
I use whichever cup is under my hand when I reach in the drawer, and sit where ever the mood takes me, Dog and I walk a different way each day…..she wants to go the way we went yesterday every time…..and while I love my home and being here, I’m always ready to go off and have an adventure…. I don’t want to be defined by my chair, my cup, whatever. I’m sure there’s an electric fence somewhere, but as soon as I realise it, I do things differently……change is good for this cow.
Every time we go away on a trip that is more than a week or so, it changes my routine just a little when we come home again. It also helps me appreciate my comfortable life even more. That is one of the things I like about traveling and doing things differently for a while, it blasts me out of my comfortable zone, and chair, and bed, and shower… makes me reevaluate what I need/want and what I don’t. Nice thought provoking post Celi, thank you.
How beautifully written – and give food for thought, that’s for sure. Any time I travel, I like to arrange the place to my liking… including straightening paintings and curtains if they’re askew. I also loved how you mentioned that we can get very, very used to our little routines and our ‘own place at the table’. And we have to careful we don’t become so complacent that we never try and see new things! ; o )