Finally feeling at home

what it means to be welcomed and loved by a house

Over the span of my life, I’ve called thirteen places home. Four apartments across the East Coast, three dormitories that spanned as far as China, five houses from the East Coast to Texas, and one sailboat that flowed with the trade winds of the Atlantic. 

But none of them were home. 

Most of them felt like storage facilities. Not for all of my belongings - I’ve never had much - but rather for me. A place I could shove my bed in the corner and live in the land of in-between. The land of neither here nor there. Just somewhere. My father used to say, “At least you have a roof over your head.” These words trailed me like a tin can strung from the back of a bicycle. I could hear the tin can scrape against pavement when I lay down each night. It was a privilege to be sheltered from the dangers of the outside world. Staring at my ceiling, I swallowed the stone-sized word privilege knowing that no roof has ever protected me from the dangers underneath it. Under some, the wall paint absorbed the sounds of virulent arguments or sloppy college parties that wouldn’t wash clean with a gallon of bleach. In others, friendships flowered or floundered leaving the lease date - the inevitable escape - to be feared or fancied. In one, I slept with a knife under my pillow because gunshots fired frequently outside of my exposed corner house with broken door locks. In another, a stalker haunted my apartment porch with rusty railings running up and down chipping cement walls like a prison cell block. 

They have all felt too temporary to hammer holes and fashion the walls with artwork. I bought second-hand furniture only to sell it again a year later. The browns were always slightly off and the couches were too small or too hard. The beige paint was never put on thick enough to cover the stains from the previous owners and the ones before them. Maybe these walls were just a storage space for them too. Like the tacky plastic ficus that dresses the corners of bleak doctor’s offices - lifeless but practical. Cold linoleum flooring prevented me from staying warm during the winter months. Old HVAC units saturated the stale air with an incessant rattle. Footsteps above, footsteps below. Step, step, step. The screech of a chair against cheap vinyl. The sounds of being unwelcome. But none of this mattered because 365 days later I would move again. To a new job that covered my tuition bills. To wherever my emotionally unsettled heart drove me. 

---

As a child, sometimes the only place I felt safe was behind my closed bedroom door. So I hid there and my sisters hid behind theirs. Beyond those doors, the air felt different. Colder. Heavier. I knew homes shouldn’t be this way, my friends and TV told me so. In the comfort of my neighbor’s houses, rooms were gathering spaces to share fellowship. We played and laughed and their parents played and laughed back. We were allowed to be loud. We were allowed to be kids. In my best friend’s home, the front door was a portal - an invitation to strangers and neighbors, those looking for love, and those looking to give. Tilted picture frames decorated the walls, artwork filled the corners, ornaments, and trinkets dressing mantles held stories that stand the test of time.

Homes are not just dwellings, they are our feelings taking form in the physical world. Home is warmth - the tender aura of a crackling fireplace. Home is safety - the shield of loving arms and tightly tucked bed sheets. Home is love - walls that whisper back sweet memories as you run your fingers along their almost completely smooth faces. Home is the smell of fresh cotton and burnt toast and muddy shoes and kitty litter. Home is sandalwood candles and sage and freshly cut tomatoes. Homes are not storage spaces but places of communion. Homes watch us grow in age and in love; they cherish our traditions, keep our secrets, and foster our dreams. Between four walls, they bind our stories. 

I’ve been ready for some time to pull myself out of home purgatory. Feeling unwelcome in the place where I rest my head, has gnawed my insides raw. No longer wanting to float between empty spaces, it is time to make my own home instead of relying on my transient life to provide it. It is time to allow my roots to pierce beyond the surface. 

My weary transient bones need a break. They ache to see unframed artwork propped against the floor and rolled into dark spaces. They long for a community that gives a damn - community that builds together, community that creates together. They plead for trees that bring us together underneath their glorious canopy instead of the boundary trees on our lawns that keep us apart. 

A few weeks ago I went to go see a home for sale in the New River Gorge of West Virginia. Standing next to the realtor I beamed - the energy of radiant hope and jitters surged from my body. Eyes softened, I gazed at the house longingly. The brick is laid in varying swatches of brownish reds holding windows framed by burgundy shades. Four white spindled columns corner the patio adorned by dark, glossy green boxwood bushes. A forest of gilded leaves browning around the edges drapes over a deep red tin roof. 

With bated breath later that day, I put an offer in on the home. For thirty-six hours, my stomach sat in my throat. When my agent called me with news that the seller accepted, liberation flooded my insides like a sip of hot apple cider that rushed warmth from my lips to my toes. 

This brick haven situated between golden rolling farmland and the dense mountains of Appalachia will soon become my home. In this home, my roof will not only be my refuge but my place of belonging. In this home I am welcome. As I walked the floorplan, I saw my artwork collaging the walls, I saw tomatoes and sage showing early signs of growth in the garden, I saw the kitchen covered in a dusting of flour and the wood-burning stove ablaze. 

But most of all my eyes were drawn to the front door. I imagined my friends that scatter the far corners of the country walking into this sacred space, communing along a cherry wood table with full bellies and full spirits. We will make love out of our stories, hold hands in grace over our hardships and our triumphs, pass bowls and thanks, share hugs and tears and laughter. You will become a part of this home’s story. 

In this home, you are welcome. In this home, you are loved.

---

This essay concludes Week 4 of Write of Passage! Big hugs to

Siesta in the Storm

,

jen dyck-sprout

,

Cris Valerio

,

Chris Coffman

,

Olivia

,

Meryl Rowlands

,

On Money and Meaning

,

Bud Ward

, and

Wyatt Ehler

for helping me craft this essay.

Thank you for being here. If this essay resonates please share it with a friend or drop me a comment below. I’ll see you here next Wednesday and I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful weekend.