Pull Up a Chair: September 4, 2026

Pull up a chair and stay awhile. I was thinking the other day about how you can tell how comfortable someone is in your house by what they do when they arrive. There are people who knock on the front door, wait patiently for you to answer, and wouldn’t dream of opening your refrigerator without asking. Then there are the people who give one quick knock while they’re already opening the door and holler, “It’s me!” as though that explains everything.

Those are usually your people. Of course, there are rules to this. I don’t recommend deciding that you’re one of those people at somebody else’s house without an invitation. That’s how you end up frightening someone half to death or learning exactly how quickly your friend can grab whatever happens to be sitting closest to her. But most families have a few people who reached that status years ago.

They know which door you actually use because nobody who knows you comes through the front door. They know where the glasses are kept, which chair somebody always sits in, and whether they need to bring their own sweet tea because you never make it quite the way they like it. If they’re hungry, they’ll start looking around the kitchen before you’ve even asked if they want anything.

I like having people like that in my life. There is something nice about getting past the stage where you feel like you have to entertain someone every time they come over. You don’t have to rush around putting things away or wonder whether you have something appropriate to serve. They aren’t expecting you to be ready for company because, technically, they aren’t company anymore.

They’re just there. That distinction matters more than you might think. When I was younger, I worried much more about what the house looked like when someone stopped by. If there were dishes in the sink, I noticed them. If there was laundry on the couch, I felt like I needed to explain why it was there. I wanted everything picked up before anyone walked through the door, which is a lovely idea until you realize people rarely schedule their unexpected visits around your cleaning routine.

I’ve gotten over a lot of that. Don’t misunderstand me. I still prefer the house to be clean. If you give me an hour’s notice, I’m probably going to spend at least part of it putting things away. I haven’t reached the point where I’m going to proudly display yesterday’s dishes and invite everyone to admire them. I’ve simply realized there are people who don’t care.

Those are the people who will move the laundry basket so they can sit down. Better yet, they may start folding what’s in it while they’re talking to you. They don’t need you to stop whatever you’re doing when they arrive either. If you’re making supper, they’ll stand in the kitchen and talk. If you’re putting groceries away, they might grab a bag and help. If you’re sitting on the porch doing absolutely nothing, they’ll probably pull up another chair. That’s a different kind of friendship.

I think family works much the same way, although family members tend to take the privilege even further. They don’t just know where things are. They sometimes develop opinions about where you should keep them.

You can spend twenty years keeping the coffee mugs in the same cabinet and somebody will still ask why you don’t put them closer to the coffee maker. They’ll move something to a place that “makes more sense” and then leave, which means you spend the next week trying to find it.

Then, when you call and ask where they put it, they can’t remember. Family is helpful like that. They also know which things in your refrigerator are fair game. At least, they think they do. There is nothing quite like opening the refrigerator because you’ve been thinking all afternoon about the last piece of something only to discover that somebody ate it.

Nobody ever knows who. You can ask every person in the house, and somehow that food vanished without a single witness. I’ve always found that fascinating. The same people will then tell you that you should have put your name on it, as though labeling food in your own refrigerator is a perfectly reasonable thing to have to do. Still, I wouldn’t trade that familiarity for anything.

There are relationships where you always feel like you need to be a little bit “on.” You make sure you’re dressed properly before they arrive. You straighten the room. You think about what you’re going to serve and whether you have enough ice. Then there are the people who have seen you in pajamas at two in the afternoon because it was simply that kind of day.

They’ve seen the house when it’s clean and when it looks like everyone inside it collectively gave up. They know you own the good towels, but they’re also perfectly capable of drying their hands on the slightly ragged one hanging by the sink. Those relationships are comfortable because nobody is performing.

You don’t have to fill every silence. You can sit together without talking for a few minutes and nobody starts wondering if something is wrong. You can complain about something ridiculous, laugh about it, change the subject completely, and somehow circle back to it forty minutes later.

You can also tell those people the truth. When they ask how you’re doing, you don’t automatically say, “Fine.” You can say you’re tired. You can say somebody has gotten on your last nerve. You can admit that dinner is probably going to be sandwiches because you don’t feel like cooking.

They aren’t disappointed. They may even be relieved because now they don’t have to pretend they wanted whatever elaborate dinner you thought you were supposed to make. Some of the best visits happen when nobody planned them.

Someone stops by to drop something off and ends up staying for two hours. You start out standing by the door because they aren’t staying long, then move to the kitchen, and eventually everybody sits down because it’s obvious this is no longer a five-minute visit.

Before you know it, somebody has made coffee or poured tea and you’re talking about something that has absolutely nothing to do with why they stopped by in the first place.

I love that. There’s no preparation involved. Nobody cleaned specifically for the occasion or planned a menu. There isn’t an agenda. Two people simply had time to sit together, so they did. I think we need more of that.

We’ve gotten so used to scheduling everything that even visiting someone can feel like an appointment. We text first. We compare calendars. We decide which day works and what time everyone needs to leave.

There are good reasons for that, of course. People are busy, and nobody wants someone appearing at the door while they’re stepping out of the shower. But I miss the casualness of people simply stopping by. Growing up, it wasn’t unusual for somebody to show up unexpectedly. You heard a car pull into the driveway and looked out the window to see who it was. If you were lucky, someone had brought food.

Actually, that’s still the best way to arrive unexpectedly at my house. Bring food and I’ll forgive almost anything. I think those easy relationships become more valuable as we get older because we understand how rare they really are. You can know a lot of people and still have only a handful who truly feel at home in your house.

They’re the ones who don’t need directions to the bathroom. They know which cabinet has the extra coffee. They remember the dog’s name and probably know where the treats are kept. They don’t ask whether they should take their shoes off because they already know your answer. They’ll tell you when you’re out of milk because they went looking for it themselves.

And when they leave, you don’t stand at the door thinking about whether everything went well. You simply go back to whatever you were doing before they arrived. That’s probably the biggest sign of all. The people closest to us become part of the ordinary rhythm of our homes. Their presence doesn’t feel like an interruption that requires preparation. It feels familiar.

I hope everyone has at least one or two people like that. Not twenty. Twenty people walking into my house whenever they pleased would make me start locking doors. But a few? Absolutely.

Give me the people who know they don’t have to wait on the porch while I make the house presentable. Give me the ones who know there may be laundry on the couch and dishes in the sink because people actually live here. Give me the ones who will pour their own drink, find something to snack on, and settle in for a conversation without expecting to be entertained.

Those are the people who make a house feel less like a place you’re responsible for maintaining and more like the center of a life being lived. Just knock once before you open the door. I may know it’s you, but you still don’t need to scare me half to death.