Dreaming of Domesticity...

I am not an overly sentimental person, though all my friends would claim the contrary.  Yes, I have a love of romance novels and chicklit, and yes, I do believe in love, but I don’t think that that’s abnormal.  Au contraire, we see it around us every day: in the couple walking along hand in hand on the street; in the partnerships of our grandparents, loyal and true; and even in our own parents.  So I think that believing in true love is merely logical, given all the evidence.

But I’ve never been particularly domesticated.  Despite an adoration for cooking, kitchens and all things culinary, I’ve never particularly enjoyed housework.  So why have I been dreaming in technicoloured 1950s glory?

Partly, I blame the novels I’ve been reading lately.  The entire Little Women series and the What Katy Did series as well...  There’s something quite enchanting to be found in turn of the century American women novelists’ work.  I find myself considering what colour bed linen I want in my own place, and how I’d decorate this room or that.  I dream of having a kitchen as loud and bustling and as Italian as my grandmother’s, with simmering pots of sugo, and handmade gnocchi on the side.

And when I say I dream of this, I mean literally dream.  When my head fits the pillow I seem to envision myself as the housewife I’ve always dreaded becoming.  And yet there’s something very comforting in that picture.  In the picture where our second bedroom’s been transformed into a study and has walls lined with books, where I write as much as I cook, and where I never have to do the ironing, for even in my dreams I can’t abide the thought of that.

So yes, apparently I’m dreaming of domesticity.  And I seem to quite like it.