Lent Day 14: Bunny Hole

When I was little I was totally obsessed with bunny holes. 

Emily's Childhood Dictionary describes a bunny hole as : 

Bunny hole

Noun

1. A cozy safe place to snuggle.

2. Generally where all her favourite stories take place. 

Bunny holes are the start of all my favourite stories. Peter Rabbit, Watership Down, Dunton Wood (although this one is technically about moles but there are even more bunny holes in a mole's world than there are in an actual rabbit's world).

I think my obsession with small cozy places started from my favourite feeling as a child  Sadly it's a feeling generally lost on the latest generations, mainly because the lost art of car sleeping is no longer socially acceptable.

But allow me some nostalgia tonight...

Remember going out with your parents to a party. Probably a 30th (because our generation of parents had already pushed out three kids by the time they were 30). Your monolithic Peugeot station wagon gets parked in someone's garden alongside the Kombis, Mercs and Fords. There are already myriads of half hysterical children running around on the outskirts of the dark garden. Open gates, kissing catchers, stuck in the mud. The evening stretches out like the best jol of your whole life. 

After what feels like hours of barefoot running through dew soaked grass the moms half heartedly tell you it's time to calm down and go to sleep. You walk past the Robinson's Kombi - their four girls have already been asleep for two hours. You gently open your wonky car door, careful not to wake your sleeping baby sister. The back of the car is lined with a mattress, some sleeping bags and pillows. You and your brother snuggle in and in no time at all your heart rate buckles down under the fatigue of a late night and too much cream soda. 

A seeming moment later, deep in sleep, you hear the laughter of your mom and the grumble of your dad as they say farewell to their hosts. A blast of cold air from a door opening reminds you that night has settled beyond your cozy car nest. You hear the starting of various car engines through the muffled nature of sleep and you know that your slumbering friends are on their way home like ships riding the dark. 

Your car engine shudders and the headlights pierce their way through the winding farm roads that make up the pattern of your childhood. Mom and Dad chat quietly in the front while your siblings snuggle in beside you in a mass of blankets, dirty feet and sleep. All feels right in the world. Everything that matters most is in one car.

That's where my love of bunny holes started. Everything snug and in one place. 

I'm reading Watership Down to Gray at the moment and to be honest the best part of the reading ritual is the moment when he gives up listening to painfully long descriptions of grass and 'silflay' to surrender to sleep. I love feeling the first twitches of sleep wind his body down to a place of rest. 

Another favourite moment of mine is when my family and I are all in the car about to embark on an adventure. Or when we're staying somewhere and we all have to sleep in the same room. And my absolute best is when my Mom, Dad, siblings and their families are all asleep under the same roof, the cousins all sharing one big Christmas bed - it's rare but it happens. 

It would seem that this little girl's love for all things warm and snug has just transformed into a mother's love to have all her people safely together. You're never too old for a bunny hole.