HOME---NOT SO SIMPLE

Is your home high in the air overlooking rooftops and a city street?  Can you hear the traffic?  Do you have a balcony to lean over?  Can you wave when a neighbor walks by? Or are there swings and a sandbox in your back yard?  How many places have you lived?  Did they all feel like home?

My home is mid-century modern with trees and a meadow. Lots of privacy, but always in need of clean-up and repair. Fallen branches, flooding creek, piles of debris.  I can't keep up.  

I also love urban.  In Princeton, New Jersey we live in a ground floor apartment.  We lower the bathroom shade in the morning when the school kids line up on the sidewalk for the bus.  There's a fire escape out the back door and a laundry in the basement. I add plants, pillows, throws and favorite photos to make it a temporary home.  

Where we stay in London we have to carry our laundry to the basement across the street.  Once we stayed in Zimbabwe.  A wonderful woman came twice a week to do our washing in the bathtub and sweep the carpet with a broom.  We love all these places.  There are so many other places I would like to live--France, Portugal, Barcelona, Germany, anywhere in Italy . . . . This list is pretty much endless.  California, Pacific Northwest, New England. . . .  I want to know the people and have neighbors.  When we lived in London our neighbors were from Australia, Canada, India, Malta, South Africa and Zimbabwe; a very international community.  We were all young and having babies and relied upon each other.  It was a special time.  

All these places to call home.  I miss every one.  But especially Mecklenburgh Square in London where our daughter was born.  When I write "This Is Your Kingdom" posts, it's the UK I yearn for.  

View of Mecklenburgh Square

I envy people who have lived in the same place forever but also people who move a lot, see new places.  Both have their attractions, don't they? 

Bella GRACE (www.bellagracemagazine.com) had a feature called "Living in Other People's Houses" by Jennifer Clawson Farnes.  It made me think about all the wonderful kinds of homes.  Cottages, bungalows, condos, atomic ranches, Craftsman, apartments, house boats.  And why being home-less, without a place to call home, is so serious.  And should be an inalienable right, food and shelter. And in some countries it is.  

Homes aren't just places of comfort, though.  We all know that tragedies happen in our homes.  Bad news.  Hurtful discoveries.  Facts that won't disappear. Words that can't be unspoken; forgiven yes, but not unsaid.  Where love is greatest and emotional distress is too.  Our beloved pets die.  Our parents die.  A spouse, a partner and, yes, even a child may die. So a home isn't just a refuge.  It's where we get bad news as well as good.  We have fights there.  We get angry there.  We get hurt there.  We crawl in our closets and hide our feelings.  But we also find consolation and solace there.  Home is not such a simple place after all. 

The sayings about home are interesting.  Some writers say home is people, not a place.  That may be so but I think of London as home and I don't have a single friend there.  The city itself is my friend.  I know the bus routes and alleyways and neighborhood restaurants.  I don't get lost.  I can shelter in a museum or cafe or library.  Cities are like that.  That's why many of us have a favorite city. 

Robert Frost (1874-1963) says, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."  That may be true if our parents are alive.  Or a brother or sister who loves us.  Or a friend who loves us as much as a family might.  But not everyone I expect has a place like that and, yet, I feel like we all have made homes for ourselves, places we want to be no matter what.  I'd love to read a book of essays just about what each writer calls home.

What do we make of all this?  It is still winter where I am.  Although the daffodils and crocuses have come up and the red bud are in bloom, we have freezing rain today.  No soccer practice for the children.  British poet Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) says that winter is the time for home--good food, comfort and warmth. Wherever we are, let's make the most of every day in our homes.  Two weeks before his death my aged father had to leave his home for a nursing facility.  Those of us who have had to face this with our parents know how hard it is.  But two weeks?  How lucky is that?  Let's treasure our homes, our nests, our collections of little things.  I don't even need to say this, do I?   With love, Nina Naomi

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