Monday, September 19, 2011

Coming home from Oz

I'm sitting here, quietly listening to quiet music that fits me, as they say, like a glove.  It's funny how you can put on a favorite song and in a moment, an instant, an instantaneous moment, be transported to that oh-so-good place.  Tonight, for me, it is Dan Auerbach that is doing the transporting.  Thank you Mr. Auerbach, I needed this.

I am slowly, inch by inch, reclaiming a space and home that I can call my own.  After spending several months in France in a perpetual state of motion and several weeks after that back in Seattle living mostly out of my car as I ran around the city looking for new digs, I am finally, finally, at rest.  Here it is, an apartment with a key that I carry with me.  A place that welcomes me with that sweet, stuffy, old smell every time I walk in the door (it's an old building, folks).  Home.

It's been a long time since I've been so mobile (and so homeless) that I'd forgotten how hard it can be to be without a place to rest my hat.  It is a joy to make a big fat mess in the middle of my living room and then, get this...leave it.  Overnight!  Oh the indulgence.  Right now I have dishes sitting next to my sink that have been there for two days and I probably won't wash them til--oh I'm gonna be a rebel here--Wednesday.  Not to be a slob or anything, just to not have to think or worry or agonize over who will have to clean up my mess if I don't.  No one else is here, so no one else to bother.

Being in France gave me an incredible appreciation for home.  Not for Seattle necessarily, but for the places we build, the nests we feather, the sweet, cozy spots we set our favorite books, put on our music, and hang our things on the walls--the places we create.  This creating is so necessary a part of the human experience that I truly believe without it, we might as well be dead.  At least a part of us certainly is, anyway.  To create textures, rhythms, sounds and smells in our lives that are familiar, comforting and necessary because they are ours--this is to make a home.  I love this.  I love building a relationship with a place, a room, a configuration of furniture, a tree outside my window--anything--as I walk beside it each day, as I pass through the moments of my life, this becomes my theater, this is my stage.  A stage for me alone, perhaps, but that is irrelevant.  Home is the place where we are both performer and audience, performing as we spin together the threads of our lives and audience as we witness the beauty that emerges from this spinning.  Have you ever had a really great party at your place, stood back and been contentedly thrilled with all the great people in presence with you?  This is the moment you are audience to your own life, watching what your many spinnings have brought about you.  I feel this same way when I cook a great meal, or bring to life a new plant--both actor and audience; my home is my stage.