Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
A Monday morning at the desk: a rather unpopular opinion about Mondays, a new book beside the lamp, and a first long look east. On the pouring, the love that happens before anyone arrives. Elias and Jacob and a ginger cookie in April. Jo, the milk jug, and one of the great triumphs of human civilization. Five in the Foil. The kitchen makes warm apples on buttered toast, and a room across the water keeps a second chair.
Come In. Itʼs Already Warm. is making its way into the world. The book, and everything else we are making together, lives at averylanemaxwell.com.
⌂ The rooms of the house — the places of the essays, as a sky: averylanemaxwell.com/sky · every recipe an episode has left: averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen · the films and every episode: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast
♫ The Galena House playlist — the episodes, among the songs they sit with: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/55wkYr82P02Tsr4zgKZubw
A note from the house: Galena House Audio is the independent creative work of Avery Lane Maxwell. Stories and reflections are presented from the host’s personal perspective and recollection. References to real places, workplaces, or events do not represent statements on behalf of those organizations or their owners, employees, or guests. Certain identifying details may be changed or omitted to protect privacy. Nothing shared on the podcast should be understood as professional, medical, legal, or recovery advice.
I write books at nine thousand feet, in a small town in Colorado, mostly before the sun is up. This is a podcast about building things by hand: books, apps, mornings, a life, told quietly, to one person at a time. That person is you. From Galena House in Frisco, Colorado. New episodes when they are ready, and not before.
♫ The Galena House playlist: the episodes, among the songs they sit with: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/55wkYr82P02Tsr4zgKZubw
A note from the house: Galena House Audio is the independent creative work of Avery Lane Maxwell. Stories and reflections are presented from the host’s personal perspective and recollection. References to real places, workplaces, or events do not represent statements on behalf of those organizations or their owners, employees, or guests. Certain identifying details may be changed or omitted to protect privacy. Nothing shared on the podcast should be understood as professional, medical, legal, or recovery advice.
A small note before we begin. This is a personal podcast. I tell these stories as I remember and understand them, from my own life and perspective. When other people wander into them, I protect what belongs to them.
All right. Come in. It's already warm.
Good morning. It's Monday. And I have a rather unpopular opinion about Mondays.
I like them. I do.
There is something about a Monday morning that still makes me believe I can get my entire life in order before lunch. I have never actually accomplished this. But I remain optimistic.
A fresh page. Coffee. A clean desk. The little administrative pleasure of beginning again. Monday asks almost nothing of us except that we begin.
And this particular Monday finds me with a new book on my desk, a small pumpkin beside the lamp, a head full of people, and an unfamiliar amount of curiosity about the East.
That last part has surprised me.
I have spent so much of my life looking west. First from Georgia. Then from Montana. Then from Colorado, where the mountains were already so large that it seemed almost greedy to wonder what might be beyond them.
West was where I went to become someone. At least that was the theory. I had a tendency to believe the next place might contain the particular version of me I had been looking for. And for a long time, the farther west I went, the more possibility I imagined.
There were big skies. Long roads. The peculiar happiness of arriving in a town where nobody had an earlier version of you on file.
You could introduce yourself. Find a job. Find a room. Make coffee. Begin.
I was extremely good at beginning. I could make a strange room look as though somebody had lived in it for years by the end of the first afternoon.
Books on the shelf. A cup beside the bed. Something folded over a chair. A lamp. Always a lamp.
I have lived a good many lives under some very ordinary lamps.
But lately I have been thinking about the East. Not as an announcement. I am not handing you an itinerary this morning. I have simply found myself curious about a different horizon.
Old towns. Brick buildings. Staircases that turn in places modern builders would find inconvenient. Houses with narrow windows and very deep histories.
The Atlantic. That last one especially.
I have spent years living among mountains that appear to be absolutely certain of themselves. I am interested in the ocean.
It moves all day. It arrives and withdraws. It leaves things behind. It comes back. And nobody seems to think this represents a failure of commitment.
I admire that. I think I could learn something from the tide.
There are places in the East where the houses seem to have been built for a different pace of life. Not necessarily a slower one. Old houses can be terribly busy.
They leak. They settle. Their radiators possess strong opinions. Their owners develop entire vocabularies for things that ought to be fixed but have instead become beloved characteristics.
I know these people. I am these people.
But there is a continuity to an old house that I love. Somebody lived there before you. Somebody cared for it. Somebody got a fire going on a dark morning. Somebody made breakfast. Somebody stood at a window waiting for another person to come home.
And now you are there. Your life enters a place that has already held other lives. I have always found that comforting.
Perhaps because I have spent so much time making homes in borrowed rooms. Perhaps because I like the idea that a place can welcome another chapter without having to erase the last one.
It occurs to me that I have been writing about exactly that. For quite some time. Only I have been calling it Elias.
There is a new book beside me this morning. Come In. It's Already Warm. A story for the keepers of the world.
I have been looking at its pages again. And they are beautiful. I am allowed to say that about my own book, I think. I have spent enough time with it to have earned a certain amount of affection.
Full color. The photographs. The recipes. The little pages from the house book. The rooms. The mountain. The man who keeps it all.
I picked it up again this morning and thought about the extraordinary amount of care that can go into making something another person will eventually hold for themselves.
That is where my mind has been living lately. Not how much we give. The giving itself. The pouring.
I want to talk about that today. Because it has occurred to me that a great deal of love happens before the person being loved knows anything about it.
Think about that. A mother making a lunch. A friend choosing a book. Somebody buying an extra pastry because they are going to see you later. A person driving across town with something wrapped in foil.
The preparations. The ordinary little decisions. There is love happening in all of them. And nobody is there yet to receive it.
I think that is extraordinary.
There is a particular hour before the house wakes that I have always loved. Coffee first. Then the lamps. Not all of them. Just enough. A room ought to be allowed to arrive gradually.
You put the kettle on. Straighten a chair. Check whether there is cream. Perhaps move something half an inch because you know the person coming through the door will notice it, even if they have never consciously noticed such a thing in their life.
And then you wait. The room is ready. Nobody has arrived. And already it is full of somebody.
The person you are expecting. Their habits. Their preferences. The thought of them. Somebody can be present in a room long before they come through its door.
I have always loved that.
But I have not always understood what happens afterward. Because eventually they arrive. And that is when things become interesting.
They put their bag somewhere you had not intended. They move the chair. They ask for tea when you have made coffee. They choose the window you had not thought was the good one. They begin telling you something that has nothing at all to do with the beautiful afternoon you imagined.
And suddenly, the room belongs to the living. Not the arranging. The living.
That is a very good thing. I am learning to enjoy it.
There are two people in Still, by Design. whom I have been thinking about this week. Elias. And Jacob. If you know the book, you know something about them.
Elias is the keeper. He remembers everything. The warm milk. The late arrival. The room that needs a little extra heat. The guest who prefers to be left alone until after breakfast.
He knows how to make a place beautiful. Not only beautiful to look at. Beautiful to be in. That is a different talent.
I gave him much of what I know. And quite a lot of what I am still trying to learn.
Then there is Jacob. Jacob has always interested me because he can see the room from the other side.
Elias sees everything that needs to be done. Jacob sees what has already been made. There is a difference. And when those two ways of looking meet, something lovely happens.
There is a scene in Still where the house is full. People are talking. Alyssa is moving around with something from the kitchen.
There is music. The kind that has been turned down just enough for conversation to continue, but not enough to prevent someone from singing a little when a familiar line comes along.
Outside, the mountain is quiet. Inside, the house is alive. And Elias stands there watching it.
Jacob looks around. Then looks at him. And says: You built this too.
Elias looks at the room. The guests. The light. Everything happening around them. And says: Not alone.
Jacob answers: That's the best part.
I love those words. Not alone. That's the best part. I think I understand them more now than when I wrote them.
Because there was a time when I wanted to know exactly how much of a beautiful thing belonged to me. How much I had done. How much I had contributed. Whether someone would remember that I had made the coffee. That I had turned on the lamps. That I had noticed the little thing that nobody else had noticed.
I was not keeping score deliberately. At least I did not think I was. But I had a ledger somewhere in me. And I was very good at ledgers. For years, they were my job.
But a beautiful room is not improved by constantly reminding the people inside it who arranged the chairs. The chairs have done their work. Sit down. Have something to eat. Enjoy your friends.
I find this advice surprisingly difficult to follow.
Jacob makes it easier for Elias. Not by asking him to stop caring. That would never work. I wouldn't want it to.
I like Elias because he cares. I like his fussing. I like his ridiculous investment in teaspoon placement. I like that he cannot walk past a crooked frame without noticing it. I like that he remembers what everybody takes in their coffee.
Those are not the things I want him to lose. I want him to discover that somebody else may want to do some of the caring too. That somebody may arrive with their own little idea of what the room needs. And that this can be a pleasure. Not a threat.
There is a moment in Still where Jacob comes back with something from a bakery. A ginger cookie. In April.
Elias questions the season. Jacob tells him some things shouldn't have seasons.
I love that. I love the ordinary happiness of it. A man arrives with a cookie. A perfectly good cookie. He has not brought a grand declaration. He has not come to explain the meaning of love. He has bought something he thought another person might like.
And there they are. Together. With a ginger cookie in April. I think we need more afternoons like that.
I want more of them myself. The unscheduled ones. The afternoon that begins with coffee and somehow becomes supper. The person who says, come with me, I know somewhere you would like.
The walk you take because a friend suggested it. The place you would never have found if somebody else had not known you well enough to send you there.
There is a great deal of happiness in being moved through the world by the people who care about us. Not controlled. Not directed. Just gently moved. Three degrees to the left. And suddenly you are somewhere lovely.
I think about the people who have done that for me. Some have known me for years. Some for much less. Some have simply appeared at exactly the right time and opened a door.
A conversation. An invitation. A room. A little encouragement that arrived on a day when I happened to need it.
I do not need to make every one of those things larger than it was. That was our lesson about actual size. A beautiful afternoon may remain an afternoon. A kindness may remain a kindness. And still, somehow, change what we believe is possible.
Perhaps that is the joy of the pouring. You do not know how far it will travel.
Somebody makes a little more coffee than they need. Somebody teaches another person a recipe. Somebody says you would be good at this. Somebody remembers a name. Somebody opens a door.
And a life moves. Perhaps only a little. But it moves.
When I think about the East now, I think about that. Not a fixed destination. Not a place that has promised to explain everything. I have asked too much of places before. I know better.
I think about the possibility of walking into another old room and noticing what somebody else has spent years making beautiful.
I think about meeting people whose lives are already happening. People who have their own routines. Their own friendships. Their own ways of putting cream in the coffee. People I might learn something from.
That excites me. It genuinely does.
I have been the person welcoming everyone into the room for so long. There is something rather wonderful about imagining myself as the one who arrives.
Someone else has put the kettle on. Someone else knows which window gets the morning light. Someone else can tell me where the good bread is.
I might simply come in. That would be novel.
And I think Elias is discovering something similar in Come In. It's Already Warm. It is his last autumn keeping the house. Not the last autumn of his life. Not the end of his love for the place. Simply the last one he will keep in quite the same way.
I want that distinction understood. Because I did not write this book to punish him for loving something. I wrote it because I wanted him to have a larger life than the one he had learned to keep so beautifully. There is a difference.
He has spent years making the inn ready. The breakfast. The towels. The fires. The late arrivals. The enormous collection of little tasks that make hospitality possible.
And now another person will be doing some of them. Her name is Jo. She is capable. Thoughtful. She arrives with her own notebook. Her own pen. Which Elias finds almost indecently independent.
He has put one out for her. Naturally. A pen. A mug. An apron. The house book. All arranged. And she arrives ready to begin.
They walk through the building. He shows her the linen. The spare blankets. The doors. The little places where the house is peculiar.
She notices that a suitcase keeps catching on a table near the stairs. She moves it. Only a little.
He put that table there himself. He had good reasons. There were flowers. It was lovely. But she is right. The table is better where she moves it. And Elias, to his credit, says so.
Later a guest asks for warm milk. Jo brings it. The handle of the little jug faces the wrong way. Elias notices. Of course he notices. He watches the guest turn it around. And drink.
Nothing happens. No disaster. No complaint. Nobody is forced to discuss the architecture of the milk jug. The woman is comfortable. The coffee is good. The morning continues.
I think this may be one of the great triumphs of human civilization. A person did something differently. And it was fine.
I love that little scene. Because it allows two things to be true. Elias cared very much about where the handle belonged. And Jo cared very much about the woman receiving the milk. Both were sincere. They simply approached the moment differently. And the woman got her milk.
I want more of that kind of life. I want to be able to care enormously and still leave room for other people to have ideas.
I want to bring everything I know to a place without treating my knowledge as the last word. I want to love something well enough that I can be delighted when another person loves it differently.
That is not a small ambition. It sounds very simple when I say it. In practice, I suspect I will need more than one Monday.
There is another reason I have been thinking about all this. The new book is about to leave my hands. That is what books do.
You spend months making them. Years, sometimes. You decide how the pages should look. You read every sentence aloud. You worry about the paper. The binding. The photographs. The little details that other people may never consciously notice.
You make something as beautiful as you know how. And then you send it away.
I have been looking at the proof of Come In. And I keep imagining where it will go. Not just who will buy it. Where it will live.
A table in somebody's home. A shelf beside a fireplace. A room with old brick walls. A house where you can hear the sea when the windows are open. A little apartment where the person reading it has to move yesterday's coffee cup before setting it down.
Someone might keep it beside their bed. Someone might cook from it. Someone might give it to somebody else. Someone might open it to a chapter that makes them laugh and have no idea why I thought it was such a serious chapter when I wrote it.
I love that. I really do.
I think it is one of the happiest parts of making art. The moment it is no longer entirely yours. Someone receives it. And brings their own life to it.
I cannot control what the room looks like when my book arrives. I cannot choose the chair. I cannot arrange the lamp. I cannot decide which page matters most.
All I can do is make the book as carefully as I know how. And trust the person who opens it.
That sounds a lot like hospitality. Of course it does. Everything I write eventually turns into hospitality. I have accepted this.
And I think that may be why I wanted Come In. to be a book people could actually live with. Not something too precious to touch.
The recipes are meant to be made. The questions are meant to be answered. The margins are there. Write in them. Fold a page if you must. I will survive.
Perhaps put a little flour on the kitchen chapter. A coffee ring. Something that says a life has happened beside it.
I want the book to become a little different in every house where it lives. That would be the best possible outcome.
There is a moment near the end that I have become especially fond of. Elias has been writing instructions in the house book. Everything he knows. The pantry. The windows. The extra cream. The things that stick. The little facts of keeping an old building.
And then he begins to see himself in every instruction. Even on paper, he is still standing over the next keeper's shoulder. Making sure. Explaining. Correcting.
So he turns to a blank page and writes: Ask them. They may like it differently.
I love that sentence. It has stayed with me. Because the beautiful thing does not become less beautiful when somebody else has a hand in it. Sometimes it becomes more beautiful. And sometimes it just becomes different. That is allowed too.
I have been thinking about how much we pour into people. How much encouragement. How much thought. How many ordinary mornings. And how easy it is, afterward, to wonder what became of it.
Did they remember? Did they use the advice? Did they keep the book? Do they still make the recipe? Did the afternoon mean as much to them?
I know those questions. But I am beginning to think they are not the most interesting questions.
The interesting part is what happened before. You thought of them. You chose something. You made room. You gave. And for a moment, care moved from one person to another. That happened. I think it is enough to be pleased about.
And I want to say something else. Because there is a difference between giving freely and giving yourself away because you are afraid nobody will ask you to stay otherwise.
I have written about that difference more than once. I expect I will again.
A person can be generous and still need rest. A keeper can be attentive and still have a life outside the house. You can love someone without making yourself responsible for every hour of their happiness.
That does not reduce the care. It gives it room.
I think Jacob knew this about Elias. He never needed Elias to stop loving the house. He wanted him to come outside once in a while. To take a walk. To eat the cookie. To sit down. To be a person in the room rather than the person making the room possible.
There is something deeply affectionate about that. Somebody sees all the work you do. They admire it. Then they ask whether you would like to come with them. Not because something needs fixing. Just because they want your company.
I want more of that. For myself. For all the keepers.
I want the kind of life where we can be good at what we do and still have time to enjoy the people it brings us. Where the room can stay warm for an hour without us checking the thermostat. Where another person can pour the coffee. Where we can come home and find something has been prepared for us.
And perhaps that is where the East comes back into the story. Because I am interested in being new again.
Not becoming an entirely different person. I have tried that. It is expensive. There are moving boxes involved.
No. I am interested in carrying what I know into a room I do not yet understand. And allowing the room to teach me something.
I can bring the recipes. The books. The stories. The little habits. The inclination to notice whether someone is cold. I can bring Avery. That should be plenty.
The rest can arrive when it does.
There is a small story in Come In. that belongs here. Five in the Foil. You may know it.
A guest is going up Mount Royal. He has breakfast and asks if he might take some scones with him. Alyssa wraps five. Five warm scones in foil.
In case you meet anyone. That is what she says. In case you meet anyone.
And of course he does. A woman. A little girl. Both tired from the climb. He has more food than he needs. So he shares it.
Later he comes back down with that particular look people get when something unexpectedly kind has happened. He can hardly believe there were five. Enough. Enough for him. Enough for somebody else.
I have loved this story since the first time I heard it. But what I love most now is the moment in the kitchen. Before the mountain. Before the strangers. Before anybody knows what will happen.
Alyssa folds the foil. She wraps five. The extra is the beautiful part. A little preparation for a person who has not arrived yet. A little room for somebody else in the day.
There is an instruction in the house book afterward. Notice. Have extra. Hand it over.
I think that is a very good way to begin a week.
So here is my question for you. And because it is Monday, I want us to be cheerful about it.
What is something good you would like to give somebody this week? Not an enormous thing. Not a gesture that requires a speech. Something small.
A meal. A note. A telephone call. A book. A walk. A little extra of whatever you are making.
Perhaps you know somebody who would like to be invited over. Perhaps there is a person who would enjoy receiving a letter. Perhaps you have been meaning to tell somebody that you think they are wonderful.
I would not wait too long. People like hearing that. They do.
Tell me what you are thinking. The detail. The thing itself. You can write to me at avery at averylanemaxwell dot com.
Tell me how you would like it held. Between us. Anonymously. Or with your name. Nothing becomes part of Galena House without your permission.
And now the kitchen. I have been wanting something warm. Something simple. Something that feels like the first good morning of a new week.
And because I have had the East on my mind, I keep thinking about apples. Orchards. Cold mornings. The smell of cinnamon in an old kitchen.
So today I am making warm apples on buttered toast. Not a pie. Not a cobbler. Although either would be a perfectly respectable direction for an apple to take.
Just apples. Butter. Brown sugar. A little cinnamon. Good bread.
Take two apples. Whatever you have. I like one that keeps a little shape when it cooks, but I am not particularly interested in supervising your fruit selection.
Wash them. Peel them if you like. I often leave the skins on. Cut them into small pieces. Not tiny. You want to know you are eating an apple.
Now put a skillet on the stove. Medium heat. Two tablespoons of butter. Let it melt. Then leave it alone for another moment.
Watch the butter begin to bubble. The foam will rise. Then settle. And you will smell that little change. The butter going from simply melted to something warmer. Almost nutty.
That is when I put the apples in. They should make a small sound when they touch the pan. A good sound. A Monday morning sound.
Stir them through the butter. Let them sit for a minute. Then a tablespoon or two of brown sugar. A little cinnamon. A pinch of salt. And a small splash of water if the pan looks dry.
The sugar will melt. The apples will begin giving up their juice. And the whole thing will become glossy.
Keep the heat gentle. You do not want to burn the sugar. You want the apples to soften slowly. Eight minutes. Ten. Maybe twelve, depending on how you have cut them.
Meanwhile, toast the bread. Something thick. A good slice. Sourdough if you have it. But ordinary bread is entirely capable of making a person happy.
Toast it properly. I mean that. Gold. A little crisp at the edge. Soft enough inside that butter can disappear into it.
Then butter it. Yes, more butter. We are not having an argument about this today.
When the apples are ready, they should be tender but not gone. There should still be little pieces with some shape. And a warm brown syrup in the pan. A squeeze of lemon if you have one. Just enough to brighten it.
Now spoon the apples onto the toast. Not too carefully. Let the syrup run into the bread. Let a few pieces tumble toward the edge of the plate.
If you have cream, you can put a little on top. Not much. Just enough to soften the cinnamon and brown sugar.
And now eat. While it is warm. The toast will crack a little under the spoon. Then the apples. Soft. Sweet. The butter underneath. The cinnamon. That very particular comfort of warm fruit on bread.
There is no reason to improve it. It is already very good.
I would make another slice. Because somebody might be coming down the stairs. And because, if nobody is, I would very much enjoy having the second.
That is the recipe. Warm apples. Buttered toast. A little extra. A perfectly good beginning to Monday.
I want to leave you with one more scene from the new book. Elias has left the inn. He has a room across the water. A desk. A window. A lamp. And a second chair.
He has not chosen curtains yet. He wants to live with the window for a while.
I love that detail. The old Elias would have had the curtains selected before the keys were made. He would have known their measurements. The precise afternoon light. Whether the fabric would fade. Probably the supplier's middle name.
But this Elias has decided to let the window be a window for a while. See what the light does. See what he likes.
August is coming over. So Elias buys bread. Butter. Milk for the tea. At quarter to three he puts the kettle on.
And then, because he is still Elias, he moves the second chair so the person sitting there will be able to see the lake. He cannot help himself. I am glad. I would miss that about him.
Then there is a sound on the stairs. August arrives. There are fourteen of them, apparently. Which August feels ought to have been mentioned.
They sit. They drink tea. Pass the bread. The light moves across the desk.
I have been writing toward that little afternoon for years. A man in a room. Someone coming to see him. Nothing to solve. Nothing to prove.
Just the pleasure of having prepared something. And the greater pleasure of watching somebody arrive and enjoy it.
I think that is what I want for the next part of my life. New rooms. Old houses. Interesting people. Good conversations. The occasional ginger cookie at an unreasonable time of year. More books. More mornings. And, somewhere among them, a little time to sit and watch the light change.
I have loved the West. I do love it. The mountains have given me an enormous amount. They have taught me something about proportion. About quiet. About being small without being insignificant. About the happiness of standing inside something beautiful that does not require anything from you.
I will carry those lessons wherever I go.
But I am curious about the East. About a place where the horizon might be water. Where an old building has its own stories. Where I might get to be the one asking which cupboard holds the cups.
Where somebody else might say: Come in. And mean it.
I think that would be a lovely thing. And I am looking forward to whatever the week brings.
There is work to do. There are pages to finish. There are people to write. Things to make. Places to go. Perhaps a good meal somewhere in the middle. I hope so. I intend to enjoy some of it.
There is one little line from the last pages of Come In. that I keep returning to. August asks Elias whether he has finished. Elias looks at the house book. All the blank pages. And says: My part.
I love the possibility in that. My part. Not the end. Not the closing of the book. Just one person having done what he could. And another beginning.
I hope I get better at that. Knowing what my part is. Doing it beautifully. Then making room for whatever comes next.
And if I can do that, perhaps I will get to enjoy something I have spent a great deal of my life preparing for.
The room filling. Even when I am not the one opening the door. The coffee being made. The laughter. The music. The little unexpected kindnesses. A place continuing to be beautiful in the hands of other people.
I think that is something to celebrate.
So here is to Monday. To the East. To old houses and new mornings. To the people who make room for us. To the people we have yet to meet. To the books that leave our desks and find their way into somebody else's home.
And to the possibility that the loveliest thing waiting for us this week may be something we have not yet thought to plan.
I'm Avery Lane Maxwell. This is Galena House Audio.
Come In. It's Already Warm. is making its way into the world. You can find the book and the other things we are making together at averylanemaxwell dot com.
Thank you for coming in today. I hope there is something good on your table. I hope somebody thinks of you. And I hope you find somebody to think of too.
There is coffee. There is bread. There is an extra chair. And the morning is still young.
Come in. It's already warm.