OUR DREAM HOME

 

Just before we got our vaccines some friends and I were visiting outdoors.  We got talking about our "dream house."  We agreed we were already, sort of, living in it.  Nothing big or fancy, just something cozy that feels like home.  

We decided that first of all, it's feelings that make a home.  One person said, "I want my home to be a place of love, comfort, pleasure and warmth."  Another said, "What's important to me is the emotional freedom I feel at home.  It's my secure place, a haven, where there's peace and gratitude."  "Staying in such a home long enough," someone added, "and traumatic memories begin to fade."  

I seem to want my dream home to be a little bit of everything:  a place for light and shadows, openness and hiddenness, happiness and sadness.  I want to find the bright and the dark, the beautiful and the mundane.  To be healthy or sick in my home.  To be comfortable there no matter what. Whether dancing, cocooning, or crying.  

Then we talked about what Things make for these feelings.  That was easy too.  We all like a comfy chair, a cozy corner, a blanket and pillows.  We all want clothes, old or new, that make us feel good; shoes the same.  

We want ways and places to keep our memories stored.  We agree on journals to write in, books to read, a computer and a TV (although we don't agree on how often to watch it), and plants.  For three of us, lots of plants.  We all agree on access to music and two of us added art and craft supplies. I want a few of my favorite magazines to reread.  We all like outdoor rooms of some sort: a hammock or patio or quilt on the grass, a chair by a hanging fern, or a window box.  One friend has a water feature in her yard we all enjoy.  I have a bird feeder.  

Finally, we said, the pièce de résistance would be enough food in the pantry and fridge to cook a good meal. Oh, and clean sheets on the bed, someone prompted.  Nothing feels better.

Doesn't this kind of inventory make you feel grateful?  Because mostly we have what we need.  Not all the time of course.  And it's impossible to list what we're thankful for without acknowledging the pain of those who have less, or even nothing.  I'm thinking of refugees at the border and those whose homes were flattened by this week's tornadoes.  We can't be satisfied with ourselves without helping others.  

But we also have the right to recognize our blessings.  There's no mental health without that. To admit that we've come to a good place in our lives where we've learned how to find peace in the homes we love, filling them with the small things that bring comfort to all who enter.  

That's what we were talking about on that day as we waited for our vaccinations.  

                                                 In peace, Nina Naomi