Homebody

When we set up house this last time, we were very deliberate about creating spaces that made us happy. Obviously we had no idea that home would become synonymous with safety in 2020. Or that home would become her workplace. Or that home would be our yoga space. Or that home would also be my classroom. In fact, home became our everything last March, and a year later, it still is. Little did we know as we rearranged furniture, bringing a table closer to the windows, moving a comfy chair closer to the fire, clearing space for a proper pantry, setting up a painting studio, just how important these spaces would be, or how each object, from lamp to mirror to photo would be called on to evoke bright and warm and much-needed positive emotion. Yet, as I pass through my days, moving from room to room I am swept along in delightful memories and leave each with an easier smile. I have become, although somewhat reluctantly, a contented homebody padding around in slippers and living in a sanctuary.

Sometimes objects just sort of collect in areas, but it is so fortunate how they each bring a certain peace. Each one triggers a place and time floating somewhere on the continuum of my life passing by all over again as I see these old heirlooms anew. My grandparents as a young couple. My spouse and I too. A clock that needs repair. The lamp as well. But for now their gold etchings make me smile, as does the champion’s bowl and tug from the reunion party. Treasures to treasure while missing so many loves.

There are stories in the vase that bears my mother’s initials, given to her by a favorite aunt, which now holds the flowers my spouse brought home for me and the marble-topped humidor which stood next to the desk in my grandparent’s den and is now in ours. Old and new colliding into today’s happiness.

A conifer bonsai and ferns both sent this year by our children, two vibrant green tea cups and a well-cozied teapot, readied on the table top I repurposed and painted last summer, bring us together for an afternoon respite and time to chat, creating a simple and sure way to get to the heart of the day.

A home with exceptional-art and living-plants and music-making bring puffs of delight to many senses.

It is easy to get sucked into awfulizing about just about everything these days. Politics is a back and forth battle with yesterday’s Republicans trying to hold on to their whitewashed vision while the rest of us are eager for a rainbow tomorrow, an out and out Big Lie is mixed with convoluted misinformation and a certain population still would rather gain their information from talking heads than read vetted reporting for themselves, while neanderthal decisions subvert valiant efforts to level the COVID spike, and here in the northeast we have another week of cold and gray days ahead. See? it is easy to be swallowed up in that headliner trap.

But inside our home there still shines a string of festive lights, I finger a strand of familiar pearls, observe the artistry of a chair-back in the fading light, each reminding me of what is the most enduring of all: truth, beauty, freedom and love. Ah yes, the bohemian ideas as espoused in Moulin Rouge ring loud in our home. I am made aware daily how lucky we are to be in such a place. And we are prepared to stay.