Tonight I get to sleep in my bed, on my pillows, after being out of the house for three months. October 8, 2021 we headed out that Friday morning to St. Louis. While we were only gone a week, we haven’t slept in our house until tonight. Home explains a bit about what happened.
Shortly before Christmas we were given the green light to “move” back into the house if we wanted to. That amounts to us, the things we took with us to St. Louis and later to Mexico, plus all the things that crept over to the temporary apartment we had been settled into. Things like a couple strings of Christmas lights and garlands that were usually used on the porch; supplies to make cards, a few small kitchen items, and some basic pantry items. It’s amazing how much some deep drawers and a few cabinets can hold.
But moving back into the house wasn’t just going to mean just transporting stuff and us from the apartment to the house. Five rooms will not have furniture for some time, the kitchen appliances have power but the kitchen lights do not, and some often used kitchen items are still off site.
Hopefully soon, workers will be coming through to do repairs, including structural work in the garage, drywall work, and then the finish work that needs to happen. As I sit and type this essay, I can hear every noise in the house loud and clear. Sound travels well in a half empty house. The rain on the roof is especially loud.
This next phase will surely bring its challenges and tiredness. Yet I’m still in a place of privilege. The repairs will be made, the missing items returned. As grateful as I am to be make in our home, I’m also thinking about our human need to have “our space” and wonder how a space becomes “ours” while another space may never feel that way.
Almost four years ago my mom suffered a stroke which left her with little use of her left arm. As she is getting up in years, I’ve been broaching the subject of her moving out our way to the DC area. She has lived in Chicago for about 55 years, and in her current condo for 21 years. That’s home. It is now feeling like a big ask on my part. There is something about the space we call home. It’s more complex than having walls and a roof, our personal things, and the people we love with us.
The spaces we call home are imbued with memories. Our homes have personalities and quirks, right? There’s a spot or two in the floor that squeaks, a latch that is a challenge to make catch. There is a home, the one we stayed at when we first returned from St. Louis, I am certain that any attempt to blindfold me, drive me around, bring me in the back way, I would know immediately upon stepping inside where I would be. That home has a fragrance, maybe from candles, incense, essential oil diffusers, the dinner that is being prepped, or all of the above, that I’m sure has been committed to memory. Lime evokes memories of a trip to Jamaica when I was a child and sometimes I get a whiff of wood, wood finish, and humid air that brings to mind trips to Cape May.
It’s a complex recipe that makes a house a home. It’s about place, like having our places at the table, regardless of age. And we may have places our friends’ dinner tables too. It’s about the light that comes in in the morning, the sound of the rain as we fall asleep. Home and being at home are not just about plopping ourselves down somewhere.
This morning the sun rose with a companion rainbow in the west, a double rainbow actually. The rainbow is often a symbol that all will be well. The forecast for today seemed to be shifting every few hours, with freezing rain starting around sunrise at some point. With the morning temperatures hovering a little above freezing and a later arrival for the rain, we decided to make the final trip and check out of the temporary housing.
It is good to be home, unfinished and unfurnished as it is. There is work to do in the weeks to come. And when this “adventure” is over, it will be time to gather friends, family, adopted family and gather around the table in celebration and thanksgiving.
May the place you call home be the place you are you and that surrounds you with good memories and loved ones…and the aroma of fresh baked bread! Sweet dreams!
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