One time when I was driving past IKEA, they had a giant sign stretched across their even more giant, blue building that said: “HOME IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PLACE IN THE WORLD.” Now, I have to confess that IKEA, as a store, pretty much gives me the creeps. Not because I have any silly hang-ups about mass produced furniture. And, in fact, their random sections of rugs and wine glasses and things really delight me if I have to be at the store to begin with. It’s just, have you ever noticed how it’s set up like this huge, life-sized maze? Like those terrible mirror mazes at fairs except that instead of running into yourself you run into furniture. And I don’t care how cheap or how delicious it is, there is something off about a giant furniture store serving breakfast in its own personal furniture cafe. It’s like it’s trying to be its own self-sustaining microcosm. Weird.
But the sign struck a chord with me. It’s trite, I know, and, in this case, an advertising gimmick. But yet it is so, so true. Harry Emerson Fosdick (who, incidentally, I think I would have disagreed with on a lot of things, but who I wholeheartedly agree with here) said, “He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland.” He was talking about home in the bigger sense. A home nation. But it’s the same gist. Most of us can name hundreds of places we would love to jet off to. Tropical islands and quaint mountain towns, exotic forests and five-star resorts. Many of us could even name several “places-we’d-live-if-we-didn’t-live-here.” But there is something about “home” that is distinct from its setting, its place on the map or in a country. There is something about “home” that is so much more important than how beautiful, or un-beautiful it is. Home has a tighter hold on our heartstrings even than that delightful place we most want to visit. At least it does for me.
Last week, my family moved out of what has been our home for the past 12 years. It’s funny how different a house looks when it doesn’t have you in it anymore. The family room, without our couches and tables looked bigger than normal. But my sweet, sunny bedroom with the marzipan walls seemed smaller somehow. The last 22 years of my life, indeed all my remembered life, save for a few select memories, I lived in that neighborhood, that town, that community. Standing in our empty family room, feeling the home all around me, I realized how well it knows me. There, under that roof, I figured out how to be who I am now. And I learned how to be happy on my own account. That house has seen pretty much every emotion I have ever had. And I love it.
Our new house is a dream come true for many reasons. And it’sbecoming home. But the transition from “just another house” to “the most important place in the world” is a gradual one. Though it sounds ridiculous, I miss the ocean. (Now 20 instead of 5 miles away). The little town we left along the shoreline is pretty much my idea of perfection here and I miss its Main Street and its familiarness and its sea smell and its proximity to other things that I know and love. I even miss the silly things like my bank and post office and Trader Joe’s and library. Here there are also banks and post offices and Trader Joe’s’ and libraries, but they are not part of my home yet. Maybe most of all I miss the jostling, gentle, sunshiney, fresh-aired, certain feeling of being there and belonging there.
Have you ever watched the final episode of “Friends?” Because everything in life has a “Friends” moment, I will tell you about it here (For those of you who are six years behind the times and still care, this is a spoiler alert. Better to be safe than the jerk who spoils the ending). Monica and Chandler (yes, I will talk about the characters as if you already know who they are because, if you don’t, you should go learn as soon as possible) are leaving the city (New York) to live in a suburb just outside to raise their newly adopted babies. It’s 30 minutes away (I did some smart mapquesting to get that info, by the way) and all the other friends are staying in the city. It’s not like they’ll never see each other again, or even like they won’t see each other often. It’s not like anybody died. In fact, everybody has happy things going on in their lives at the series finale. And yet, at the end of that episode, when they all lay their keys on the kitchen counter and walk out of the apartment for the last time, my heart breaks every time. Because that fake little plywood apartment with the funky colored walls and a hole in one side for the studio audience is home - the most important place in the world - and they are leaving it, and so must we.
The older I get, the more torn apart I feel. The people I love are strewn about the world. The places I love are hundreds of miles apart. Sometimes the things I want and the things I need are in two different places. Indeed, sometimes two things I want or two things I need are in different places from each other. Happiness is here and there and all over, and yet sadness too is perennial.
I love this new place. I really do; I’m not just saying it to try to convince you, or myself. I love that we watched it grow into what it is right now, with us inside. I love it for how hard my parents have worked on it and because it has a gorgeous big backyard where Mom can garden. I love that it means good things for my family. I love that some of my favorite people – and animals – in the world are here with me. I love the hardwood floors. I love that right now I am sitting here listening to the rain come down outside and the record player playing Christmas music. And those are the things that homes are made of. So I’m not worried. My problem, it seems, isn’t that I feel homeless, it’s that I have too many homes. And yet, with my heart here, full to bursting in all its confusion and joy, I wonder if that’s really a problem at all.
-R.E.A.
