Hanging curtains Ivan Ilych-style

In my ongoing attempt to make our house a home despite my thrifty tendencies, I decided a few months ago to purchase some curtains for our den. We already had curtains, but they were makeshift homemade cafe-style ones that I had never spent the time to hem. The unraveling had gotten out of hand, and our dachshund had chewed the ones he could get to from the back of the couch. It just made the den feel shabby, and I didn't enjoy being in there. So I surfed my way to JCPenney.com during their January home sale (as I said, I am thrifty), and found some really quite attractive curtains and rods for a very decent price. Just the thing to make the den feel more homey--and to make me feel like a real grown-up (I'm almost 38; it's about time for me to have some real curtains. Or are they drapes? What's the correct term anyway? Does the fact that I don't know the difference between curtains and drapes mean that I'm not really a grown-up? No matter. More important existential questions will be addressed later in this piece, and "curtains" will have to suffice).

Of course, as with all best-laid plans, some of the rods were backordered. The ones that came in right away I immediately put up. I felt very self-satisfied about (1) having pretty darn good taste, (2) getting such a good deal, and (3) being so resourceful as to put them up myself. But two windows sat undressed until the rods finally arrived about a month ago. A few weeks later, while the kids were at school on my day "off" (translation: my only day to grade essays, grocery shop, wash and fold the week's laundry, pay bills, and do any other miscellaneous household chores), I carved out a few minutes to hang the rods. By this time, I was an expert on hanging them, so I didn't expect it to take long. I got out the step-ladder and the necessary tools and went to work.

I should have known better. In our 100 year-old house, the floors aren't level and the walls are made up of who-knows-what, and it turned out that the wall these rods were going on was not as cooperative as the wall the other rods had gone on. So I fought with the rods, made all kinds of marks on the wall, dented and nicked the paint in numerous spots, and eventually ended up with a painful boo-boo on my forehead when the rod refused to go onto the anchor that I'd finally managed to install and instead reared up and almost knocked me off the ladder. After much cursing (good thing the kids were at school) I did finally get the rods and curtains up. It turned out that the nicks were barely noticeable once the curtains were there, and this wall looked just as nice as the other wall. The den was finally complete.

About an hour later, as I washed my hands in the bathroom, I took a glance in the mirror and gasped when I saw that I was bleeding profusely! I had thought it was just a bruise. Anyway, I cleaned it off, put on a Barbie bandaid, and went on to fold the laundry. No biggie.

It was about a week later, as I was preparing for my World Lit. II class, that I made the Ivan connection. The title character of Tolstoy's famous novella The Death of Ivan Ilych (depending on the translation, the spelling of his name differs, but this doesn't change the fact that I'm sure I consistently mispronounce it), encounters something eerily similar:

"Once when mounting a step-ladder to show the upholsterer, who did not understand, how he wanted the hangings draped, [Ivan] made a false step and slipped, but being a strong and agile man he clung on and only knocked his side against the knob of the window frame. The bruised place was painful but the pain soon passed, and he felt particularly bright and well just then."

Oh my! This injury, which Ivan laughed off just as I had, was the beginning of the end! Obviously, there are a few minor differences: I wasn't talking to an upholsterer--I'm a do-it-yourself kind of gal--and I knocked my forehead, not my side. But other than that, the situation is quite similar, don't you think?

A wave of self-examination followed: Am I like Ivan in other ways?

Am I over-concerned with appearances?

Does the fact that I was so eager to replace the curtains in our den indicate that, like Ivan, I'm a vain, superficial middle-class professional who wants to make a good outward impression while hiding internal moral shortcomings?

If I were to die tomorrow, would my coworkers' first thought concern who would take my place? Would my family's primary preoccupation be how inconvenient my illness and death are to them?

OK, so I admit that I really don't take the last few questions seriously. I'm pretty sure that I'd be missed if I were to die tomorrow, that I'm a pretty moral and ethical person, that I'm not a carbon copy of Ivan.

However, re-reading The Death of Ivan Ilych, which I do every semester that I teach it, reminds me that examining my life, and in particular my values, is a good thing to do every so often. That knot on my forehead could be read, like Ivan's fatal injury, as a reminder that when appearances become more important than compassion for others, we hurt not only ourselves but the ones around us.

But when I examine my motives for putting up new curtains, the similarity to Ivan becomes insignificant. The curtains really do make our den feel warmer and cozier, and it's now a nicer place to spend family time. And that's what it's about--creating a comfortable place for our family. For Ivan, his carefully decorated house was a statement to impress others (although we are told that "in reality it was just what is usually seen in the houses of people of moderate means who want to appear rich"), and was not in any way a sanctuary for his family. But for me, I can accept that, to paraphrase Freud, sometimes a curtain is just a curtain.

And if it turns out that I am like Ivan in more ways than I'd like to admit, Tolstoy ends the novella on a hopeful note, as Ivan is ultimately redeemed on his deathbed. I'd just rather this happened a little earlier for me.

In case you're wondering, the Barbie bandaid was only needed for a few days, and you can barely see where the boo-boo was.