My home. Or the bank’s home, I guess, but they let me live here.
In early March 2020, I signed paperwork to purchase a home. It was a significant moment. I had owned a home before, but this is the first time I would own one on my own. In the early days after my divorce, living in my rental, trying to figure out what life might look like moving forward, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to a time when it would be possible to own my own home. I felt proud that day.
And scared. And even more scared when the pandemic hit and my town went into lockdown a mere 11 days after I’d legally promised to pay for this house. None of us knew what was coming. Fortunately, my family remained healthy, my job remained stable and, weird bonus but I’m grateful: mortgage interest rates came down. The kids and I moved into our new home in late June 2020, waving at our new neighbours from a safe distance, and it became our sanctuary during a few of the strangest years I think many of us have experienced. (If you have to weather a pandemic, I recommend doing so in the countryside if at all possible. Also, foster kittens and adopt a few because four cats is a totally reasonable number of cats to own.)
As physical structures go, there have been three places in my life that have really been homes to me: my grandparents’ farm up north, the little green and white house I grew up in, and my home in my small country village. But what makes these places home can be found in places not made of brick and mortar, not surrounded by wildflowers, not decorated with a million throw pillows (I have a problem). Home means calm to me. It means safety. It’s a place where I can be myself. It’s an opportunity to connect with the bigger picture, not only the stars above but the stardust I’m made of.
Home can be found in people, and I’m fortunate to have several beautiful homes who text to check in on me, who find thrift store treasures they think I might like, who will at least tolerate if not laugh uproariously at my goofy jokes.
Home can be found in moments in time: in noticing the soft tree-sifted light of a forest, in wearing the same shirt as a stranger, in seeing a ‘90s neon wind suit costume at Spirit Halloween.
Home can be found in art: brushstrokes that just get it right for you, a TV show that is warm and perfect like the best mac and cheese (food can be home, too), hearing a song come on the radio that is your JAM (also, jam on toast, am I right?).
Welcome home: You are safe and loved. You are a part of the universe, you are located on a motherlovin’ timeline. You are meaningful: you are FULL of meaning and stardust and ‘90s Canadian soft rock song lyrics.
I am expansively grateful for the walls surrounding me, but I’m more grateful for the home I experienced in the moments when we painted them, so imperfectly, laughing. I breathe so easy in my cozy bedroom but I also breathe in home through the window screen in the sounds of the coyotes at night and nearby cows braying the day away. I love my open concept living space but I love even more the home I feel when my kids and I play Bananagrams here and watch Stranger Things and lift our feet because Ewok the hamster’s speeding by in his plastic ball (oh yeah, we got a hamster, too).
I wonder: Where do you feel at home? Who do you feel at home with? What song lyrics do you live in? Also, do you have a good mac and cheese recipe? I wonder many things. I’d love to hear from you, below. And if you’re struggling to find the safety and warmth of a home - in walls or arms - I am wishing it for you so hard and, in the meantime and always, please make yourself at home here. You are seen and you are stardust.