on taking care of yourself

[jenk]

This is from Pastime, by Robert B Parker. I first read this shortly after I got my first apartment. In a lot of ways, it created an image of the sort of home I wanted to create for myself.

      "I've spent a lot of my time alone, and I have learned to treat myself as if I were a family. I give myself dinner at night. I give myself breakfast in the morning. I like the process of deciding what to eat and putting it together and seeing how it works, and I like to experiment, and I like to eat. There's nothing lonelier than some guy alone in the kitchen eating Chinese food out of the carton."
     "But cooking yourself a meal," Susan said, "and sitting down to eat it with the table set, and maybe a fire in the fireplace..."
     "And a ball game on..."
     "And a half bottle of wine, perhaps."
     I nodded.

Years later I heard a speaker talk about using family/household rituals to create safety, harmony, and community. This quote outlines an example of this in pretty basic terms.