Many, many years ago I wrote a column on moving into a new house. Here’s a portion:
When Did This House Become Home?
Did it happen the day before we moved in, when I carefully hung the boys’ dress shirts in their new closets? Or the first night we all slept here – camped out in sleeping bags because the beds weren’t put together?
Perhaps it happened around the time Steven got angry with me for piling dirty wash on the front stairs? Or maybe it started the Sunday afternoon we all sat out on the deck and laughed at Sam’s new “buzz” haircut? Or the night Frank proudly carried the “most improved player” trophy he had won through the front door?
Maybe it happened the day we all pitched in and mulched the shrubs? Or the first time of many times that Max angrily slammed his bedroom door shut after being told “No”?
Could it have been the first night Harry came home from Gettysburg College and all five of our children sat around our table for a Friday night dinner? Or maybe it happened when the bus dropped off Louie after kindergarten one day and he ran in, slammed the door and yelled, “Hi Mom, I’m home.”
Come to think of it, I’m not really sure when it happened. I just know it did.
We sold that house many years ago. There’s a lot less laundry to do these days – two people vs a mob of soccer/baseball/basketball sports-addicted kids. Buzz cuts? Maybe the grandkids’ style of choice. Our sons are more likely lamenting loss of hair, not length of their locks. The trophies are packed away and our shrubs are mulched by a landscaping service. Our front door no longer barrels open by tired and hungry kiddos weighted down by backpacks at 3pm. No teenagers are around to slam doors, though I’ve been known on occasion to slam a door or two. And most dinners? Just my husband and me.
Based on the above, is our house “a home”?
It’s 9pm. In the midst of packing for a trip, I’m furiously pulling dresses out of the spare bedroom closet wondering how each one of them could have shrunk since the last wearing. My cell phone rings, interrupting my intense scrutiny of why the spandex I’ve just exhaustingly wriggled into is creating more bulges than smooth lines.
“Mom, for work tomorrow I need the most embarrassing picture from my teenage years. You know ‘the one.’ Can you snap a picture of it and text it to me?”
“Yep,” I answer knowingly. “I’m on it.”
I peel off the spandex – relieved that I can finally breathe again – and start rummaging through my picture stash. No easy feat – most are packed away in boxes on high shelves in the garage or stacked in uneven layers under every bed in the house.
An hour later, I find it. Snap a picture of the picture. And text it to him.
Early in the morning while assembling our luggage in the front hall, I glance into our very staid, formal, seldom-used dining room. Hmmmm.
Aha! An opportunity for creative embellishment…what an unlikely place for a framed newspaper article of my teenage son, Louie, winning an Elvis look-alike contest.
I carefully place the photo beside my grandmother’s silver candelabras and atop my husband’s grandmother’s antique mahogany buffet.
It funked-up my very staid, formal dining room – though some would exchange the “n” for a “c”
My take: the definition of “Home” is where you can funk-up any room you wish.
Keep Preserving Your Bloom,
Iris Ruth Pastor