GEMUTLICHKEIT

NOUN: WARM FRIENDLINESS; COMFORTABLENESS; COZINESS.

The sense of wishing to be known for what one really is is like putting on an old, easy, comfortale garment. You are no longer afraid of anybody or anything. You say to yourself, ‘Here I am–just as ugly, dull, poor, beautiful, rich, interesting, amusing, ridiculous–take me or leave me.’ And how absolutely beautiful it is to be doing only what lies within your own capabilities and is part of your own nature. It is like a great burden rolled off a man’s back when he comes to want to appear nothing that he is not, to take out of life only what is truly his own. (David Grayson, journalist and author)

It’s like being caught wearing no makeup, with shaggy hair, still in your pajamas, and answering the doorbell at 8 o’clock in the morning while restraining your over-friendly Jack Russell Terrier, yet feeling no embarrassment when your perfectly groomed neighbor stops by with a request.

It was like the feeling I had on the first day of teaching at the community college when I entered the classroom with shaking knees, and facing all those fresh young faces, when I realized I really did know more than they did.