It’s almost reading week in St Andrews, a halfway point through the first semester, and the initial period of adjustment is wearing off. With the first wave of deadlines beginning to hit, the nightlife is slowing down (for some), and if it’s not schoolwork keeping you inside at night, it’s the grueling task of trying to find an outfit appropriate for both the club and the baltic walk to and from it.
It’s certainly understandable if you chose to spend a great deal of—if not all—of this season in your bedroom frantically catching up on missed lectures from hungover days or opting for a ‘casual’ yet intimate drink in the kitchen with the people you’ve accumulated over the past few weeks.
This time of year serves as a wonderful checkpoint in time, Summer well in the past but not quite the frantic, frazzled winter yet. Whether you are a new or returning student, it’s the perfect time for cosy reflection and to offer thanksgiving to the place which hopefully you have come to accept as your home, in an entirely ordinary way.
And the best song which encapsulates such a time and feeling has to be ‘Our House’, by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Written originally for Joni Mitchell, who Graham Nash was courting at the time, the song is an ode to the quiet moments in life, without which the human mind would surely break.
At the height of their careers, both Mitchell and Nash, led frantic lives as incredibly influential and sought after musical artists in the late nineteen-sixties and early seventies within the birth of the new age of folk music. After meeting at a party for such masters of their scene, Nash and Mitchell retired to her home in Laurel Canyon, a vicinity in Los Angeles and the known hotspot for major and upcoming musicians such as Jackson Browne, the Doors, The Mamas & the Papas and many others.
For a couple days, the couple disappeared completely from the spotlight and hysteria of fame. The birth of the song comes from one particular moment on a grey and miserable morning, where the couple ventured out for breakfast at Art’s Deli. On the way home in Joni’s car, they had passed an antique store with a vase in the window that she immediately adored. After purchasing it, the pair returned home, and Nash offered to light the fire whilst she arranged some flowers and displayed her new vase.
In the moment, he was struck by how ordinary it all seemed, and how such moments had become rarer and rarer in his life as he chased the sun, as he writes, “life used to be so hard, now everything is easy cause of you.”
He was, as we all should be, struck by the vitality of being tired, being still and being human. If life remains consistent at one pace, you’re doing it wrong. Moments of reprieve are a necessity if you live fully, catapulting yourself into life when it matters. It is necessary to use these moments of inaction to build a den, lighting fires, arranging flowers, creating a space where you and those that you love are safe with your thoughts. Especially poignant considering that in University you likely have not access to the home that was built for you to grow up in, it is crucial to comprehend the beauteous opportunity you have now to build one yourself. A ‘very, very, very fine’ one, if possible.
In essence, do not be ashamed to become a bit of a homebody for a while. Whether you have a house, flat, or single bedroom in a disgusting university accommodation ‘Nesting’ now gives you the opportunity to return to the world later, confident that there is a place to envelop you soundly should you falter.
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