Drapes and more!!

I was a little kid, not more than eight years old, when I came across an article in The Reader’s Digest’ by this middle-aged woman, hmm, say forty years or so. It was a nostalgic piece about the importance of curtains in her life. I, a little kid all of eight years, found the article to be very frivolous and the writer, very immature. I didn’t give this piece much thought for a long time. It was tucked away somewhere in the corner amongst the grey cells in my head like the numerous editions of The Reader’s Digest scattered in my mother’s attic.

It was not till about few weeks back that I suddenly remembered this article. I put my curtains for wash and I felt so helpless for those six days. I eagerly waited for the neat and tidy curtains to be hung again, like a kid waiting for her best friend to return from her vacation. I felt a lack of privacy. I felt everything concerning me was visible to people in my neighborhood. Did I have eggs for breakfast or dosa? Was I taking a nap or reading a book cuddled under my quilt? Did I have a face-pack on or have a clean and washed face? Was I alone at home or was my husband already back from work? Everyone around me seemed to know the answers to these questions and I was definitely not comfortable with this feeling. Not that I am a celebrity and everybody was eager to pry on my day-to-day activities, yet it was an eerie feeling. That’s when it struck me how important my drapes were to me.

I spent hours for the first few months after moving into this house designing my drapes, identifying the colours which would match my furniture, the ideal pattern for my bedroom, for my living room and even my bathroom. In fact, I was under the impression that curtains were purely for aesthetic purpose. I didn’t realize that they served more than that. They were the perfect guards, guarding me from my nosy neighbors, kept me away from the eerie darkness that lay behind my open windows, and at the same time allowing sunshine to enter my life as and when required.

Now, this left me wondering, why this didn’t affect me all this time. The answer was simple, as usual; mother-dearest always took care of it. She ensured that every time we moved from one house to another, she would first put up the curtains and create our own cozy nest. The mess of the packaging, the scattered furniture could all be arranged at leisure, once we knew that we were the only ones in control of our house.

As I write this, I wonder, why I have become so fond of my curtains. Is it because I am middle-aged now, like the author of that article? Or have I started just understanding my drapes better? I prefer answer b. It leaves me happy.

Curtains Please!!