"Defining Home"

by Monica Petter



Everything was packed away. All the china, all the linens, all the personal keepsakes boxed for the move. I think even my soul may be neatly tucked into a box somewhere. I surveyed the naked walls and it struck me at just how much pictures make a home. The place I called my home was now naked. Only indentions in the carpet left by my furniture hinted at the home’s décor. If I closed my eyes my olfactory would recognize this still as home.


Strangely, as we drove away for the final time with merely nails left in the walls to hint at our history, I felt no sadness or remorse. For, a home was what you made it. Walls couldn't talk, so why would I get sentimental as I pushed on to new horizons.


The new home was foreign. It smelled differently. Not of people so much, but of the very materials that held it’s structure. It had its own sounds that startled or attracted my attention out of the blue. The only familiar sound was the refrigerator we brought from the other house. The ice machine’s annoying thump as it dumped new ice was like an old school mate I had bullied and neglected and now felt remorseful for taking for granted. It was now a piece of familiar.


The routine I had down in my sleep was lost. I was lost. Searching. Realizing. Finding that a house wasn’t a home. A house was a shelter, cold and stoic. I felt rejected, an outcast trying to bribe this house into a welcome. It watched me. I wished now that walls could talk.


Weeks of bribery passed. I painted, cleaned, unpacked, and got new furniture. All these sacrifices to the god I called house. At night, I slept like a corpse. The fear of the unknown lurking deep inside. I hid it well with a smile – my camouflage. I kept myself busy so as not to notice I was lost in the shuffle. My roots had yet to take hold. I felt like a guest. Surely, soon, the owners would arrive and kick me out. They never came.


Then one day, I gave up. I quit trying to please. I just began to live. Like a rainbow after the storm, I felt the walls close in to embrace me. Then, I began to put my decorating touches to the new, untouched plainness. The house melted its icy reign in the new loveliness. Soon I noticed my familiar home scent permeate and linger. Maybe it was just my nose that denied me? Maybe I didn’t want to really recognize the scent. I was rebelling, making things more difficult. I was lying to myself. I had to let go of the comfortable, the old. I had to welcome the new.


I drove past the old house yesterday. It was spooky. It felt distant, small, and stark. It wasn’t my home anymore. I realized at that moment home isn’t a house at all. Home lives deep inside you stored next to your ‘feel good’, your convictions, your passions, and your fears. It is the rituals, the wine, the melodies, the time, and the memories spent living.


I can watch the sun rise or set anywhere as long as I carry home with me. I can see home dance on the silvery waves crashing to the shore at dusk. I can find it in the songs of birds that greet me each morning. You will never feel lost or outside of your element if you keep home close to your chest. Funny, I had boxed a little of my soul in the move.


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