REsources for Living
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I’ve been enjoying looking at pictures of tiny homes lately—little bitty houses made of cargo containers, recycled materials or just a lot less traditional building materials. There’s definitely an appeal to a house that’s no bigger than you need, that pushes you to have less stuff and spend less money and use up less of the planet’s resources.
But I was a little taken aback by an article about such a tiny house (one that could even be towed around), which finished with this declaration: “The Morrisons’ home reflects a physical and mental place all of us strive for. They’re free from debts and bills, mind numbing routines, a permanent address, and everything else that prevents us from being the people we want to be”.
Really? Is that what everyone wants, let alone what everyone strives for? Does having the daily routine of household chores and a permanent address keep us from being the people we want to be? Sure, most of us aren’t big fans of chores. Those of us who are parents, and have to work out what chores to have our children do and how to get the kids to actually do them, might have a little extra stress wrapped up in the process. But is there nothing good about tending to a particular place?
Don’t people, at least some people, want to settle in for the long haul with neighbors they know and gardens they have tended long enough for trees to bear fruit? Isn’t there something worthy in all those daily chores of sweeping and dusting and cleaning the refrigerator? Not that I’m really a fan of any of those tasks, in and of themselves. But I have come to value being a homemaker.
Homemaker isn’t a title that gets very much respect these days. When people ask what you “do,” they expect to hear about the work that you do outside the home. But whether or not a person has a paying job, it turns out that the work of making a home is vital for our happiness.
Of course, what making a home looks like is very different for different people. Maybe you have a showplace of a home where people come for parties and admire the view. Maybe you struggle to keep the rats at bay or pray daily that your home can be a refuge from dangers of the street. Maybe you are committed to keeping your home a place of calm and order where people can relax, or maybe you are dedicated to building a home where kids can be creative and express themselves—even if it means drawing on the walls.
There isn’t a right way of making a home, or a right kind of home to make. But home-making at its best does answer a particular longing: to be welcomed, to be at ease, to be included. Recently a high school friend shared the sad news that her father had died, and there were many of us who responded with memories of how her house had been a place where we always felt welcomed, at home. Both of her parents were true homemakers, with a gift for creating a home not only for their own family, but also for a group of rather odd and not necessarily very well-adjusted teenagers.
In my last years of college I discovered that home-making was not the special realm of settled, middle-aged parents. I made friends with a couple whose tiny apartment was always open to their community—a place where we gathered for long discussions about life, the universe and everything, while our hosts popped in and out of the kitchen, periodically appearing with exquisite cupcakes or truffles or other homemade treats. It seemed, at the time, like a kind of magic.
Perhaps it was. There is a special kind of status that we give to things that are homemade—created by the people who make homes. A hand-made quilt is far more valuable than its machine-made, department store counterpart, even if the stitching is not so even. The very fact that it has been touched, over and over, by human hands gives it some sort of magic that increases its worth in our eyes. Even chain restaurants and giant canned soup manufacturers will tell you that their products are “homemade,” or at least that they taste like homemade.
Now, I’m willing to bet that plenty of us have been in homes where the cooking quality was not something you would necessarily choose over even the most ordinary chain restaurant menu. But “homemade” food, even if it has never seen the inside of anything but a commercial kitchen or a factory, tries to hold on to a bit of the magic that comes from someone making a meal just for you.
The labels on the menus and the canned soup labels may be false, but they point to something real. To create something homemade, to make a home, is to create a space for connection. It is a declaration of welcome, a demonstration of caring for the particular individuals who enter in. It is an affirmation of the good things that you can find not in the exotic location of your dreams, but right here, in this ordinary place, which is, in the end, where we are most likely to become “the people we want to be.”
- REsources for Living - December 1, 2020
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