Lenisa Always Finds the Warm Spot

Lenisa is a princess. I say this not as a figure of speech but as a matter of record. She has lived with me for several years, and in that time she has never once lowered herself to sit on a cold floor, a draughty step or any cushion that was not exactly to her liking.

She always, unfailingly, finds the warm spot.

A study in sunlight

If you want to know where the sun is in my house at any given hour, you do not need a compass. You only need to find the dog.

At eight in the morning, she is on the landing, where the light comes through the small east window and lands in a neat square on the floorboards. By eleven she has moved to the rug in front of the sitting room doors. In the early afternoon, she takes the armchair by the south window, which is officially mine. By four she is on the kitchen windowsill, a place she is absolutely not allowed, and from which she regards me with complete serenity.

In winter, she follows the stove. In summer, she follows the shade. She is never wrong.

A dog does not decide where the warm spot is. She simply notices, and goes there.

What she knows that I forget

I have been doing House Readings for a long time. I talk a great deal about paying attention to the house, about noticing where the energy gathers, where the light falls, which rooms feel alive and which feel heavy. I believe every word of it.

And yet Lenisa does all of this without a single word, without any theory, every day of her life. She has read this house more thoroughly than I ever will.

What she knows, and what I so often forget, is that the body can be trusted. She does not argue with herself about whether she deserves the sunny spot. She does not wait until the housework is done. She does not wonder whether the armchair might be needed by someone more important. She feels cold, she finds warmth. She feels tired, she lies down. It is as simple as that.

The places we deny ourselves

Most of the women I meet have a warm spot in their house that they rarely allow themselves to use. A window seat covered in laundry. A beautiful chair in the corner of the bedroom that has become a place to put clothes. A garden bench that is admired from the kitchen but never sat on.

We make these places, often with great care. Then we save them for some future version of ourselves who will finally have the time. She never arrives. The warm spot waits.

Lenisa would find that incomprehensible. If there is a warm spot, you use it. That is what it is for.

A small practice, courtesy of the dog

Here is what I would like you to try this week. It is Lenisa's method, not mine, and it has been thoroughly tested.

• Spend one day noticing where the sun falls in your house, and when. Write it down if you like. You may be surprised.
• Find the warmest, most pleasant spot you can at a time of day when you could plausibly stop for ten minutes.
• Go there. Sit, or lie down. Bring a cup of tea if you must, but do not bring your phone.
• Stay until you feel warm all the way through.

That is all. Do it again tomorrow, if you can. You might find, as I did, that your house becomes a different place once you start living in its warm spots rather than simply walking past them.

On princesses

People sometimes laugh when I call Lenisa a princess. And she is, in the sense that she is thoroughly spoilt. But I also mean it in an older sense. She carries herself as if she belongs exactly where she is. She expects comfort, and she finds it. She rests without guilt.

I would like a little more of that for all of us. The certainty that we are allowed the warm spot, simply because we are here, and it is there.

She is on the windowsill again as I write this. I have decided, this once, not to say anything.