A Series On ‘Home’
The cleaners cleaned today. The house is empty, but I couldn’t go up to see it. I just didn’t want to see it empty.
I wanted to see it with my mom and my aunt and me, laughing like loons while stringing up greenery on the banister for Christmas.
I wanted to see it when I’m the last person up, looking at the Christmas tree in the livingroom corner, reveling in the lights and smell of the tree, before tiptoeing upstairs.
I wanted to see it with my dad sitting at the dinner table, tweaking my earring because he hates piercings.
I wanted to see it full of my brother’s friends, eating salsa and arguing politics.
I wanted to see it with the family in the TV room, shouting ‘Jeopardy’ answers.
But those people aren’t there.
So I’m going to be blogging a lot about ‘Home’ for a while. What it means to me, different ‘homes’ I’ve had.
It may get maudlin. The prose may get downright purple. Feel free to avoid, or bring a barf bag.
If you’re unbarfy or immune to purple prose, tell me, what makes a home for you?
Some Stuff | Liz May 27, 2006
By Arwen, May 28, 2006 @ 12:50 am
When I was younger, we moved around a fair amount. I needed a home to have 1) A bookcase, 2) A benjamin fig, and 3) A complete works of Shakespeare. And art on the walls.
I would also always create a corner which was beautiful. Just one place with an arrangement of art and plants or furniture which I loved.
Now, it’s you folks. It’s more than the place to hang my hat: it’s my family and my loved ones, and this beautiful expensive pretentious well loved city.
And of course, the art. And the books.
By Arwen, May 28, 2006 @ 12:50 am
(Shakespeare optional, now. Isn’t that interesting?)
By sarah, May 28, 2006 @ 3:05 am
I moved house often enough as a kid that “home” was never tied to a building for me. In addition to that, my parents divorce when I was two meant that there was never any one place that contained my immediate family.
I have different homes. The place where my mother hangs her hat will always be home to me, wherever that may be. Her house will always contain the elements that make my childhood home – the place where I can go and be the baby. The physical items I grew up with, but mostly the memories comprise one kind of home.
Vancouver will also always be home. It’s the place I became an adult and made the best friends a person could have. I would not have wanted to spend my twenties anywhere else. I can’t live there and provide the life I want for my kids, so it, too, has become a past home. Like my mother’s house, a place to visit and be strengthened by memories.
Home now contains my husband and daughters. I need a physical space wherein I can know that all my charges are safe and warm. Beyond our four walls I’d like to find a city or town with some culture to expose my children to and to feed my soul, but mostly I need a place where we can earn enough money to keep a roof over our heads. I want my husband to find rewarding work in his chosen field that can sustain us financially so that I can make the home I want for my family.
By Beth, May 28, 2006 @ 9:50 pm
Home, for me, is four strong walls. It’s the place I can come back to away from stress. It has a strong door that locks. It’s the place I don’t have to be what someone else expects me to be, I can just be me. It’s the place where I decide who I want to let in.
I have to have a comfy place to sit, I need books and a kitchen that works, a desk and a good bed.I also have to have a place where I can feed the people I love. I’ve had lots of homes but these are the common pieces.