fussing
by bam
don’t fuss, the old line goes. please, don’t fuss.
it is the insistent plea from one who’s been invited to one who’s swinging wide the open door. it is, i’m certain, deeply meant. don’t go to trouble. break not your stride. it’s just a little visit, don’t mean to make you harried.
well, i am here to tell you that nothing in the world has me purring quite so contentedly as fussing for whoever is en route, coming ’round the mountain, heading my direction.
it is my deeply soothing feathering of the nest. it is clearing out the dust, making way for those you love, you miss, those who can’t get here fast enough.
if there is a single domestic art that lulls me into buddha bliss, it is this. pure, unabashed, whole-hog hospitality in the form of fussing. flitting here to there. atwitter. abuzz. delightedly so, i swear.
i found myself fussing the other afternoon. and i couldn’t have been humming more merrily. i was, i am tickled to report, going mad with clippers. seems i’ve gotten rather over my dread of bringing outside in. this season finds me snipping like a fiend.
i filled vases, jars and tiny vessels with all sorts of oddly matched bouquets. there were smelly chives tucked right beside bright and cheery mint. waning pansies, the perfect je ne sais quoi crouched beneath the listing spanish bluebells. a big fat fuchsia peony, the first one of the almost-summer, is squatting soundly in the middle of my kitchen table, ants and all. which, of course, my little one made sure to protest when he discovered a wee black crawling thing mountain-climbing up his pizza crust.
because my garden’s not yet full-tilt, i had to pluck some blooms from that flower patch that offers three stalks for four bucks just inside the swinging door of my local grocery store. i got the sweetest, smelliest rubrum lilies i could find. picked out the nasty burnt-orange fuzzy parts, the parts that stain every single thing they touch, from their middles, and left them to fill the house with their clouds of lily fumes.
i was fussing for my sweet beloved brother, the one from arizona. and the girl who’s fetched his heart. i was about to meet my newest will-be sister, and for a girl who never had one growing up, a sister is a sacred blessed trust. a sister is a thing to fuss for.
heck, i hauled out the vacuum. tried to shoosh away the dust that’s been collecting in the not-so-little piles as the builders once again take their hammers to a wall. i wasn’t really cooking, as a deep-dish pizza was the windy city thing they wanted. but still, there are ways to put out noshes that say you really care.
i imagine, yes i do, that more than one or two of you are fussers also. fussers stick together. fussers keep an eye on how it’s done, and then, like lint, forever follow suit.
i can tell you that to be fussed over is to be swept right onto heaven’s cobbled walkway. i close my eyes, i think of cheryl, who once lived miami way. cheryl, who graces public radio when not gracing me and hordes of others, mentioned once she’d love to write a book on hospitality. she already did, i tell you. she wrote the book.
the time of which i’m dreaming was in fact the first time i’d ever left my firstborn (never mind that he was 4 or 5). it was just one night, but he and i both cried. silly us. cheryl soon made me forget that i’d been torn.
i can, to this very day, still feel against my palm the finely threaded pillow case she’d left upon my bed—her bed, really, as she’d insisted on the couch. can taste the jalapeno kick in her gazpacho. can hear the jazz, syncopating off the walls in the sanctuary of a little church under swaying towering palms.
i remember feeling wrapped in her cocoon. all my cares i kicked off at the doormat, at her gentle unspoken invitation to do so. i was, for the 24 hours i spent under her wing, a woman drinking deeply of the milk of friendship. not a mother missing her only child.
it is that cocoon, and others like it, others of those in my life who know the art of leaving a basket at the bedside, a nosegay on the nightstand, a stack of puffy terry towels, that i set out to spin myself.
it is a busy harried world. our visits, all, are far too short and far too long between.
to fuss is to consecrate the time and place. to make holy the altar of our communion. to lift up the bread, the wine, that is our history together.
you do not come into my house, my heart, unwrapped.
i will fuss as merrily and mightily as the day is long, for you to know how deeply your presence lifts me from the merely worldly into some other sacred orbit, a sphere where truly dove-tailed souls shine softly on each other.
it is a sacramental thing, the blessed holy work of fussing.
to that i say, amen. and hallelujah.
a finer way to end the week i can’t imagine. a moment’s pause to ‘fess the stories of those who fuss with all their hearts and make us taste of heaven. you can tell one on yourself, if you have particular ways of feathering your nest for company. or you can tell of times you’ll not forget, the fussing fed you heart and soul so deeply….
pull up a chair 
With hospitality, as with journalism, one never knows the full effect of one’s actions. It moves me that, of all the people and places you could have referenced, you remember so vividly our visit that must’ve happened 8 or 9 years ago. Thank you, dear – your timing, as usual, is perfect.
as kids we never understood the fussing of my parents. they as open hearted entertainers, fussed A LOT. my father polishing his bar and slicing limes, my mom (perfectly coiffed as you so put it) clicking around in heels, stirring this in between arranging cocktail napkins. i too, have become a fusser (no silver, no waterford thank you-there is a limit to my fussing) because i too, think there is no better way to give thanks to those you love than by hosting friends or family around the table. as a true fusser i will haul out the china even for burgers on the grill because those who cross our doorway are worth it.
Sometimes, sometimes, there is a certain kind of guest for whom it is okay not to fuss, for whom it is perhaps better not to fuss, who sometimes would rather that you not simply because she knows how you really live, how you really are. I’m all for fussing. Just in the case of some Really Old Friends–not siblings and certainly not new siblings, not in-laws or parents or distant, just-discovered relatives, or new friends or new acquaintances–it is, I think, okay to let those Really Old Friends in no matter what the state of your house or heart. They’ll take whatever you offer in any form and be grateful, or at least gracious. For these people if I sweep and mop too much they get uncomfortable, not in an oh-I-wish-she-hadn’t-fussed sense, but in a there’s-something-askew-in-the-cosmos sense, and for my part I prefer to keep all my guests, of whatever sort, free of discomfort.By the way I love the photo, what a beautiful little pitcher with flowers.
my new husband of one year has reintroduced me to the fine art of fussing. My mother was a fusser a various sorts through out her years. From doing special things for her children to the extreme of the neighborhood parties complete with punch bowl and fondue pot. Over my years I have had various stages of fussing. New wife fussing, new mom fussing, single mom making everything special fussing. And then a lull where the fussing didn’t seem to matter and no one to really fuss over. Then my new husband comes along and a wonderful thing happens – someone is fussing over me! The feeling that comes over you to see the care someone puts into a unsuspected lunch when you come home in the middle of the day lasts for a very long time. And once you feel the effects of being fussed over you want to share that feeling and start looking for ways to fuss over others. Welcoming friends and family into your home; to making the people who are with you everyday feel a little more special because someone took the time to care.
Having told my sister “don’t fuss, we just wanna see you”, I felt a peace knowing my sister would kick back in her Lazy Boy and sip lemonayda until the heart fetchee and fetcher arrived. Long story short (I gotta finish packing) we get to the home where the “pullupachair” photo was taken, and experience a welcome fit for visiting royalty…the day was so precious, we didn’t want it to ever, ever end.Thank you Barbie for writing your hospitality book with living pages–“how to make everyone feel truly special.”
ahh yes, jcv, no-fuss friends are a fine and wonderful thing. and so is the art of no-fussing. it is, like the rumpled, knees-out jeans you grab first from the closet when you need to run promptly, suddenly, out the door, so easy. so familiar. i do love to practice the art of not fussing. and i am delighted you thought to bring it up. it is essential. i endorse wholeheartedly. i simply love the other art too. the art of purring as you fuss. and you, bro, up above, i would fuss for you forever. i don’t like la-z-boys, for one. we were plum outa lemonade, for two. why lolligag and twiddle thumbs when i could be out clippin’ blooms for you? and it was no trouble, besides. not one bit. having you here is like a bolt of sunshine beaming through the roof. you and fetchee are one fine picture. we are all still walking ’round with sparkles in our eyes….xoxox
how interesting, you just happened to ‘send’ your comment at exactly 10:13, which also happens to be the date the fetcher and fetchee will be tying that big, wonderful, delightful knot. how apropos.