Making Home

Home is the place where - when you have to go there

— they have to take you in. - Robert Frost

Making home is not about investing in real estate. I’ve been making home for nearly forty years. Since I am a seasoned nester, I have learned a few hard won lessons about settling in, improving, then selling and moving only to start over again. I’ve lived in all sorts of dwellings, both rented and owned, modest and well-appointed. The one thing that stands true about all of these abodes is that they have always reflected who I am and what my attitude is about home.

First, I never count the cost of making home; though I do love a bargain. I never hedge about the investment of time and energy expended - not in terms of what it will add to the resale value, anyway. I have dived into every place I have ever lived knowing I do it for another reason than bumping up the market value.

You know, they say you never get out of a house what you put into it. This may be true if you’re only talking dollars and cents. But what is laughter worth? What value will you place on boisterous gatherings of friends and family? On birthday parties, holidays, and puppet shows? Can you put a price tag on the clean, green fragrance of freshly cut grass mingled with sweet blooming hedge — the one you planted with your own sweat and labor? How do you list that on a sales contract?

Where is it written that every day spent loving and living is meant to be reimbursed when a house is sold? Did you not use the space? Were you not repaid for your investment daily in precious unforgettable memories? When a house has been filled up floor to ceiling with the joys and struggles of life, the worth of it is incalculable. It no longer is a building of brick and mortar —it is the sum total of the rippling echoes of a thousand verses of Jingle Bells, a much loved kitten’s mewing and the salty wailing of growing pains. It might be anxious mid-nights at the same front windows, standing watch for a loved one’s car to pull up in the drive. It’s a cacophony of celebrations, weddings, births, deaths, the ringing outbursts of joy, agony and anger. Sprinkled into the mix, just for balance, are all the tedious days of dull and in-between moments.

Home.

Home should be where you can be who you really are. It’s not about big or small, new or old, owned or rented, humble or extravagant, fashionable or outdated, richly furnished or patched together from yard sales, apartment, mansion, hut, cabin or cave. In fact, home is not about architecture at all. Home is a place you determine in your heart. It’s where you retreat to lick the wounds inflicted by the outside world. Home is where you dare to dream. Home is also the best place where you can get quiet and honest with yourself…and God.

If it isn’t home, it’s just a house, a stopping place, and a shelter from the weather. Anyone knows a house is only worth a little green ink on paper. But the miracle is — if it’s home — it is a space, regardless of dimension, filled to capacity with the spirit of those who live and love there.

What price can you put on that?