Nesting

The act of creating a home

I’d written a rambling post the other day, which was intended to be an essay on this, but it was written with a tired mind and wound up not going where I intended it to go. As these things do. This, then, is my essay on “why we can sometimes feel out of place in our own homes.”

I aim to fill this house with light and beauty.

I spent the first years of my life in a military family. We moved frequently, enough that I say I grew up in Alaska when commenting on early life and not wanting to explain that before that, we’d lived in Florida, Oregon, Mississippi, Nebraska… and within those states, had moved around as well. It was only after Dad got out of the service that we moved near my mother’s family in Alaska, and were homesteading there until his parents decided to insist he move nearer them (which was a disastrous decision, and one I was deeply unhappy about, but was too young to realize that I likely had options, and… that’s a whole other story but may contribute to the feeling I had later of never being at home). Suffice it to say that by the time I was 18, I’d had 19 addresses (even if I didn’t remember them all).

Fast forward through thirty years of, yes, moving. Also, trying to raise my kids, deal with a traumatic marriage, and the fallout from that. Meeting my current husband and tentatively forging a home with him at my side. Knowing, even then, the house we lived in was temporary as it was far too small for us and the children. Later, we did buy a larger home, when they were finally safely with us again. Still, I was restless and unrooted. Which likely fed from the years where I had family, but not a house I knew I’d live in forever (as illusory as forever is). In Ohio, I didn’t have the family support or community around me. So, with his support, we moved to Texas. The apartment was never anything more than a landing pad, poised to launch us into a home…

The Unknown Rose at sunrise in my garden.

We bought this house over two years ago, and I love it, and still, there are places where I don’t feel like it’s my space. I was talking with friends about this, a month or more back, and one of them immediately affirmed the feeling. She’s familiar with it too, it’s not just me. That got me thinking about why we both have this unsettled sensation. There are parallels of not having a stable home base as a child - not that my parent’s didn’t do their best, but we moved a lot. I always knew, in the back of my head, there would be another move. Even here, where I’d promised my husband I would never make him move again, I hesitated over a year before plunging into the gardening. Gardens are my happy places. I’ve worked at making the house a warm and welcoming space for guests and friends. And I have myself felt an intruder in some of the house, at times. It’s a very weird sensation when I catch myself and think it through logically.

It was accentuated by my son’s launch into the adult world. He moved out, back in, and then out again. The nest was empty. The world was a little off-kilter, and it took months to fully accept that this last flutter off the edge, into the Navy, was going to take and he’s gone for years at least, likely the rest of his life. It’s a natural, good, healthy thing. For both him to be independent, and me to feel slightly bereft. My husband and I have slowly eased out of spending time together only in the office to using the living room for sit-and-chats. It’s quiet. Sometimes, too quiet. Feels weird.

The conversation with a friend, and my own internal analysis, led me recently into consciously nesting. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, in all of these moves over all those years, it’s that when you first move in and unpack, it’s not done. You put things away where you think they should go, only to realize later that wasn’t the right place. With the kitchen remodel, I used that momentum to reorganize, redecorate, and generally claim my space. This may not work for everyone, and I suspect the urge to make a home - literally be a homemaker! - is more feminine than masculine as my husband seems bewildered by my urge to pull the house apart and put it carefully back together. You do have to wonder, sometimes, when a bird brings his mate a stick, and she takes an inordinate amount of time to place it, only to pull it apart later and put the whole mess out of place before remaking the nest with no visible difference… if he’s sighing patiently in his head before flying off to find a nice flexible strand of dry grass or perhaps a puff of soft seedhead.

I am also resisting my internal tendency to stay in my comfort zone. The desk is where I work, and after work I really should walk away from it. Which, if I weren’t working two jobs, would be easier. So? I’m setting up other workstations. Illustration can happen anywhere there’s a soft place to curl up with the iPad. I can take a laptop to the treadmill desk. I have the drafting desk in the art room. I literally have nine or ten places in the house at this point where I can sit and work or stand and work. I will start taking advantage of that. If I spend enough time in the other rooms, I will start to feel like I belong there, too.

I used to rearrange furniture a lot, I’ve realized thinking back over the years and the houses. The physical act of setting a place into an order I could see was grounding me to that place. This still works, although I try to involve my very patient husband in it now, rather than surprise him with suddenly! chairs and couches in new configurations. We’ve come to the mutual understanding that certain accomodations for his health issues have to happen, and I’m making those more comfortable for him, and more attractive. He may say he doesn’t care, but I think having a pretty space is as important as the practical while we can manage it. There will be a point where only the comfort is important but we are not, thank goodness, there yet.

My plan for this house involves paint, this winter, as well, but first I’d like to get it all ordered the way I want it so it can be easily moved away from walls and back again. And of course, I’m making myself spend more time in every room of the house beyond the office and kitchen. I don’t know that any of these will work for other people, but I do suggest trying. It’s not fun to feel like you don’t have a safe space around you, a home you can nestle into and feel warm and comfortable, content to be there. To love your house, and all those in it. I’ve lived for far too long where that wasn’t the case, but I’m not there now. Just have to convince the backbrain it’s ok to relax and let the past go.

This is my home. We may leave it temporarily, but we will always come back here to be at home. No matter where in the world I am, the lodestone points me back to this little house, where we are together again. I refuse to feel weird and awkward here, and I will set every corner, every drawer, into order until I am comfortable and secure. My nest may look fluffy and messy from the outside, but inside it’s soft and safe and warm to sleep in. I’m home.