What Defines Your Comfort Place?

Take Pen to Paper: Edition 109

Hello Readers,

I hope you are sitting in your favorite place to read or write.

Last week, I sat in the doctor’s office waiting for my husband to finish an appointment. I intentionally took something to read other than my phone. My choice was my favorite magazine, Breathe. That’s right! I took a paper magazine and indulged in some reading time. Then I took out a pen and took notes.

Reading one of the articles in the issue inspired this edition about what I need in my comfort place (not to be confused with a comfort zone which is a psychological state).

In this newsletter:

1. A common theme.

2. A history of my comfort places

3. The people who start it.

What Is Found In My Comfort Place

With the magazine in hand reading about keeping pens and paper handy, my comfort place was 66% defined. (A doctor’s office waiting room just doesn’t do it for me.) I was reading Kate Orson's article on the traditional practice of putting pen to paper.

Since I was old enough to remember holding a book or drawing and coloring, my comfort places have had books, pen(cil) and paper, and a quiet place to sit. All three of these elements have calming effects, at least on me.

I have fond memories of finding these elements readily available. If I have books, paper and pen, and a quiet place to indulge, I’m in my comfort place.

My Comfort Places

I am fortunate to have a history of comfort places in my life.

No books in the house were off-limits growing up.

I grew up in a home with books. Even if the words were beyond us, we could look at the pictures. I could always find an out-of-the-way place to read or write. My family moved around. Our books always went with us. I still have many of my childhood books. My grandmother’s house was the same. Books were upstairs and downstairs. We were welcome to leaf through whatever caught our interest.

As children, we never had to search for a pencil and paper.

I know we wrote and drew because my mother saved our pictures and stories. My mother always kept a box of scrap paper in the family room and a pad in the kitchen for anyone to make a note, list, or doodle. My grandmother kept scraps of paper and pencils readily available in her bedroom on a card table. Those were the only things we were allowed to get from her bedroom without permission.

Reading and writing were always encouraged activities.

We were free to read or write anywhere in the house. I remember reading in the “formal” living room. At my grandmother’s house it was the TV room, (which was on only during news hour) or the front porch. Loud children were shooed outside to play.

And then there was the library.

No matter what city or town we lived in, we always had library cards. In the summer, my mother took us on weekly trips to the library.

Libraries had more than books. Pencils and paper were found near the card catalog. You could thumb through the cards to find the books you wanted, jot down the title, author, and/or Dewey decimal number, then head off to find your book among the shelves. All that was left was to find a quiet, comfortable place to read. I found the routine of choosing a book and finding that space both adventurous and calming. How can that be?

Those Who Lay The Foundation

As a child, I thought everyone lived like this. Now, I know that not every child has books, paper and pencil, and a quiet place to sit when reading or writing.

My career as an educator was spent primarily in lower socioeconomic areas. My experiences taught me I was lucky to have parents who helped me discover and create my comfort places like their parents did for them. It’s no accident that my grandmother’s house had the elements of my comfort place, and then we had the same elements in our house.

Now, I see my children doing the same. My granddaughters, ages three and seven, have bookshelves in their bedrooms to complement the one in the family room. Pencils, crayons, markers, and paper are kept in handy places. They frequent the library year-round. Sadly, they will probably have to settle for a digital card catalog and visit a museum to see a card catalog with actual cards.

Now, all I need to do is schedule routine time in my comfort place.

What about you? Have you thought about the elements that make up your comfort place?

Three girls in their comfort space. Photo by L.H. Abel

7 Days, 7 Thoughts on Gratitude and Good:

1. I am grateful my granddaughters are being introduced to my comfort elements early. As the picture above shows, my granddaughters started going to the library before they could walk.

2. A quote: “But, sometimes, getting out a pen and paper and writing longhand is just a nice relaxing thing to do.” -Kate Orson, “Firsthand” from Breathe magazine.

3. A good way to combine reading and writing is to keep a commonplace book of quotes and passages that speak to you from what you read.

4. There are cognitive benefits to handwriting. Check out this article.

5. I wrote about the benefits of writing in my newsletter From The Pen’s Nib: Edition 32. You can read it here.

6. While there is not an annual survey on all the types of libraries in the U.S., it’s estimated there are 123,627 libraries of all kinds, reaching 96.4 percent of the population. Here’s the data. Check out a library near you today.

7. It’s good to relax in your comfort place. Your mental health counts.

Thank you for reading. This week, spend some time in your comfort place.

Until next time,

💚

Susan

What is an element you need in your place? Is there a history around it? Leave a comment and let me know. I would love to read about it.

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I have a 2nd newsletter about journaling. If you are interested or know someone who would be, check it out at From The Pen’s Nib: A Commonplace Book About Journaling.

🙏Bonus thru November🙏

Last year, I created a free gratitude template for anyone interested in either:

• starting a daily gratitude practice

• stretching your gratitude practice

The template is 31 topics and example sentences for gratitude. Thirty-one topics will get you through each day in any month. Isn’t November a great time to start?

My journaling habit started with gratitude. It has brought me more than I imagined, so it’s natural for me to recommend it.

I love having a guide and examples when I take on a new endeavor. I hope this template provides that for anyone who wants to use it. There are three ways to access the template.

1. Access and make a copy of this Google Document: The Daily Gratitude Habit Jumpstart

2. Go to The Daily Gratitude Jumpstart by clicking this link https://sgsabel.gumroad.com/l/DailyGratitudeHabitJumpstart. Or enter it into your browser.

   When you scroll down the page, you should see my Gumroad home page without the “Name a fair Price” section circled. In the “Name a fair price” box, put the numeral “0” because this is free! You provide your email, and a copy will be sent to you to download.

3. You can also access Gumroad through my website, takepentopaper.com, which has a link to the site described above.

Let me know if you have any problems by commenting or answering this email. Technology and I are often at odds, and I may need to tweak access.

I will post the above in my newsletter throughout November. Remember, the template is not month-specific. Use it any time.