I’ve been thinking about the idea of home a lot lately, partly because I so desperately want a home of my own, and inside it, I want a literal room of my own for books and plants and writing. So the idea of home—a place you’ve made your own, a place where you have that particular feeling of belonging, a place you take stewardship of, a place that nurtures your creativity—is what I’d like to explore today.
I bet you didn’t know pufferfish make mandalas for their homes.
In constructing a home, a place distinctly yours, you’ve carved out a small space in the wider, not-yours world (or the ocean for pufferfish).
Here’s a bagworm moth, which makes a little log cabin for its pupation.
If you’re new to this newsletter, there’s a past issue you should check out where I ramble on about natural architecture in more depth.
Night Heron
by Edgar Kunz (via American Poetry Review)
What now? You’d flown in
from a Midwest city named
for its rowdy summertime
abundance lying saying you
were coming to visit friends
in San Francisco and I had taken
the train from chilly Oakland
to meet you and we rode north
carefully not touching I took you
to the tiny one-room apartment
I had escaped to after a bad
breakup and fried us nervously
some potatoes in a cast iron pan
a little rosemary which we
did not eat because you kissed
me hard and we went in a rush
to the mattress I bought off a guy
in a semi-famous band and had only
the day before gotten off
the floor and onto the pinewood
bedframe I’d found and hoisted
on my back and carried
down out of north Berkeley arms
wide weaving through the side-
streets toeing the center line to avoid
snagging the buckeyes leaning out
it was about suffering
in public it was dramatic
sure but the dramas of my life
those days were pitched
as high as I could stand higher
sometimes I said breathless I want
to taste you and you said please
yes and later out at the edge
of the lake huddled against
the damp wind hot grease
soaking through a paper bag
licking salt from each
other’s fingers obscenely a night
heron peered up at us from
the reeds small hunched dipping
its shining beak in the shallows not
particularly beautiful but a heron
nevertheless the same one
we were sure we saw perched
on the awning outside the theater
whose marquee shouted slogans
like WE LIVE IN A FAKE
DEMOCRACY and PREVENT UN-
WANTED PRESIDENCIES
WITH HAND COUNTED PAPER
BALLOTS and later the cabin
we rented with friends
in Calaveras snowmelt vaulting
the redwoods to magnificent
heights drinking rye and each
of us practicing our best
wolf howl at the waning
moon which was ridiculous yes
but once we started it became impossible
to stop waking up next morning
hoarse and happy and you moved west
and we lived together in a ground
floor apartment anyone
walking past could see into and then
my father died and at almost
the same age yours did and both
from drink and an unnamable
sadness I went back to Connecticut
alone three and a half days
my mother said before anyone
had found him in his apartment
on the far side of town and going
with my brother which we
should not have done and dragging
the mattress out and clearing
themaggots off the ceiling
with a shop vac and so on and later
you came and we walked through
the basement of my mom’s place
I wanted to show you where for
a while he lived and how and you
slung your arm around my waist
and we moved slowly together bare
fluorescent bulb shining
on the Budweiser ashtray
the carpentry tools I would
inherit the ratty couch he crashed
on for years you held up
an old calypso record he loved
and sang out softly Jump in the line
Rock your body in time and I
sang back softly Okay I believe you
and after a while mom at the top
of the stairs shouting what
are you kids doing down there
and climbing the steps you pinch
my elbow and ask if I’m
okay and I hear myself
say yes which is not a lie though
I’m not listening I’m letting
myself feel how astonishing how
astonishing what our love can make
of a place like that
I think of this on an ecological level as well as a societal level: everything needs it’s space and place to live, we all need to live together in this neighborhood, in this country, on this planet, and we’re never really alone. We all need to live together in a collective network of interconnected needs and roles. Home should be a uniting concept rather than an isolating one, separating us from each other into distinct boxes we call “mine.”
Somehow, this all reminded me of a book my father used to read to me, A House for Hermit the Crab by Eric Carle. It is still one of my favorite Eric Carle stories. In it, Hermit finds a new shell, but it’s plain and bare, so in his travels, he gathers different living things that agree to help make his home beautiful. They journey through the ocean, becoming a built family. Which is all to say, home, the idea and space of it, should connect us together.
Which is also to say housing should a human right. If you’re not convinced of what seems like obvious logic, let John Oliver explain it to you. He often nails it with his longer segments, and this one is no exception.
I don’t know how you can listen to this song and not dance a little. Impossible.
Let’s just take a moment to swoon over Anaïs Nin’s LA home, which is incredibly preserved and was recently featured in the newest issue of T Magazine (really the whole issue is great).
Anaïs Nin’s home has the same simple aesthetic in harmony with natural light as the Pompeiian homes I’ve also been recently swooning over, since discovering an online exhibition by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. It is unbelievable. I encourage you to click through and fly through the House of the Tragic Poet and look at the frescos and painting materials.
I’m a little obsessed with these frescos. I love that they painted right on the walls, that artwork was intrinsic to the home. Our homes reflect who we are, what we find beautiful. I think of all the shells, rocks, and seedpods I’ve collected over my travels and placed around my home (not unlike Hermit the Crab), of the artwork my partner and I have chosen together that speaks to an aesthetic of our combined selves. And I love that this has been a human habit for centuries. I’m the daughter of an artist, and my father’s paintings now hang in hundreds of homes, so it’s always seemed important live alongside art. It saddens me that this value for how to live well seems to be fading in popularity. While these frescos are now in museums, they were once in someone’s home, in the background of their daily lives. There’s something so alive about them.
I once heard that the smell of fresh-baked cookies triggers feelings of comfort and home in the brain, so real estate agents will sometimes bake cookies before an open house. I don’t know if any of that is true, and I don’t care. I don’t need scientific proof that the smell of cookies baking feels like home. So I’ll leave you with a cookie recipe that has been my go-to for years now. It’s from Joy the Baker (except I use semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks instead of white chocolate).
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup dried cherries
1 cup chocolate chips or chunks
Heat oven to 350°F.
In large bowl, beat margarine and sugars until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well. Add oats and raisins; mix well.
Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.