On Becoming Home | A Series
A tension. A push and pull of thought, of wondering, of understanding, of not. Lately I've been thinking about home. Home. It's central to every one of us, the common denominator. Four walls and a roof with an address attached, it's what envelopes our lives, for better or worse. It's the context for our story. Here we engage, here we reflect, here we rest. Or that's what we hope.
But there are so many voices out there, practically yelling through our screens and from our pages their absolutes about how our homes should be, what they should hold, how they should look. Upon this advice, our places of rest can quickly become nothing short of a furniture store mock-up, a replica of a glossy spread. Then we wonder why they feel flat, why they feel lifeless. Why the shine is too shiny and the new feels too crisp. And why, the very next season, the wave has passed and the trends have gone and left us behind.
Maybe it's because we've forgotten the components of home that money can't buy. Maybe we've gone looking for a showpiece when what we really want is a soul peace. Maybe we've created homes that talk at us instead of speaking to us. Maybe the structure at our address is merely a repository for the latest and greatest (or the broken down, the crumpled, or discordant?), instead of being a placeholder for meaning, a well of refreshment.
But how do we get from here to there? From the home we have now to the home our souls desire? Does it require selling this one and buying that one? Does it require bigger? Does it require smaller? Newer or older? Does it require minimalism? Does it require maximalism? I'll tell you this: It requires an understanding. You can relax. You can quiet the noise. You can take the home you have now, or the idea you have for another, and allow it to become something you may not have imagined. (Oh, and psst: Let's just set aside square footage for now. The size of the envelope has no bearing on the message that it contains. Wink.)
I'm going to begin a conversation, here, in the following weeks, about this deeper story of becoming home and its two-stranded thread. I'll speak of becoming in the philosophical sense: a development, an unfolding, a timeline, a process of becoming home. But also about becoming as a descriptive. As in a becoming home. A place that has allure and intrigue, yet bears an underlying humility that invites rather than impresses. Not a home that shouts, You have arrived! But one that graciously says, I'm glad you've come.