"You can have more than one home. You can carry
your roots with you, and decide where they grow."
HENNING MANKELL
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In a recent issue, Victoria magazine invited its readers to respond to the prompt below:
"Reflecting on all of the abodes where you have lived, which house truly holds your heart? Whether it was the home that shaped your childhood memories, a humble cottage where you first set up housekeeping, or the place where you reside today, we would love to hear what makes this haven special."
When I read this, I thought what a lovely subject to think deeply about. I was most interested to reflect not only on the house that holds my heart but every abode that shaped and marked my life through the decades. When I started gathering my old addresses, memories long forgotten sprung up, vibrant and still so alive with feeling even after all these years. My life for the main part has fallen in pleasant places, so each dwelling is rooted in its own treasured and happy remembrances—all the way from my childhood and youth, through adulthood and middle age, and now into seniorhood.
Ever since I was a girl, I dreamt about the day I'd set up housekeeping in my own home. Each place I lived in, no matter how short the season it turned out to be, I set down some roots, made memories, made it home. However transient my stay, I always took the time to turn plain rooms and bare walls into cozy havens—whether it was my college dorm room, my summer house in Venezuela, my tiny first apartment. It was great fun! I loved housekeeping. Happily I'd set out my things: dishes and bowls, towels and bedding, books, pictures, plants, and knick-knacks. Making the space my own, where I could hang my coat, kick off my shoes, and plop into that comfy chair next to a stack of books after a busy day.
Every place had to have the potential to be cozy. Which, when I came to think of it, was elemental. Cozy was my favourite word, I think. For me, it represented comfort, warmth, and relaxation. Not to mention, safety and shelter from the elements and the outside world. I never saw until years later that I was trying to recreate that feeling of home I'd experienced in my childhood. For in that plain and unassuming farm house, my mom had made the house she had come to as a bride into a comfortable and welcoming place for her family and for all who passed through the doors as guests.
I think of one of my very first memories of that little house. I would have been about three or four or five. I came from my bedroom down the short hallway into the kitchen, bright with morning sunshine. And my young mom, standing at the counter or stove, turned to me with a smile, "Good morning, Merry Sunshine." To this day, I'm still filled with the warmth and light and love of that early childhood moment. For me, that's what home was for me. It was the way I wanted my own home to be.
I've come to see that what we know first in our lives often shapes future yearnings. My home had to have light, warmth and coziness - it was the key every time to creating something comfortable and welcoming. No matter how tiny, no matter how transient, I surrounded myself with the things I loved, the people I cared about, and created spaces that bade me and my guests welcome.
Over the next few weeks, in this Home Sweet House series, I hope to write about each of the dwellings I once called home. I look forward to revisiting them in my mind, ruminating how they shaped and sheltered my life.
❦
Wishing you a beautiful weekend, and
Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians.
Brenda
Photo credit: Manfred Richter from Pixabay
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