A HOUSE OR HOME?

 

Friends have cleaned out the clutter from their home and put their house on the market. The house has been staged and looks inviting on the website; but for them, it has lost the feeling of home, and they find they can't be in the house for long. Their move reminded me of our move to Tokyo when we had six weeks to decide what to bring with us. We had to arrange for packing and shipping, find a school in Tokyo for our son, try to learn a little of the language, say good-bye to old friends, and a million other things we needed to do. If you ever were an ex-pat or moved frequently within the U.S., you know how the whole process goes. Because our move was a corporate one, we had a lot of help. We were told to pack for two shipments, one small one filled with necessities that would arrive when we did, and another filled with furniture and other possessions that we needed, which would appear at our door six weeks later.

When we arrived at Hiroo Towers, we discovered that the apartment complex we chose provided a completely furnished temporary apartment for the six weeks before our sea shipment was delivered. Not knowing about this wonderful set-up, we packed within our essentials shipment all the things we thought we would need: forks and knives, plates, toilet paper, sheets and towels, and just enough clothes to get by. Except for our clothes, most of these items were provided in the temporary apartment. This thoughtful planning by the Japanese owners became our first introduction to the Japanese way. What we really needed came six weeks later.

One early evening before we left home in the U.S., I walked out into our backyard to say goodbye to our house. I looked through the window to a room filled with golden light reflecting across bookshelves filled with books and blankets bundled in baskets by our chairs. The light brought back the memories which made this house a home. I remembered sitting on the kitchen floor with our son, a big piece of paper spread between us, as we used pencils and pens to draw our own versions of home and neighborhoods. I thought of the times when Bill and I moved out of each other's way in our "kitchen dance" as we made breakfast in the morning, or as we stopped to watch the birds at the bird feeder at sunrise, or when we had friends and family gathered around our dining room table or when the kids who tumbled about in our son's room, ran outside to the hill in our backyard and then came back into the kitchen looking for something to drink. Home: more than just a structure.

As we de-clutter our house and ponder what will come, we ask ourselves if should we stay where we are, move to a smaller place, travel, or seek different kinds of living spaces? I think of our move to Tokyo and the choices we made of what to bring with us and what we packed away and know whatever we do will probably be wrong for a while until we begin to invite people to share our table. 

Another version of what home means:

Watch Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, a whimsical stop-motion animated short, about a mollusk who lives in an Airbnb with his grandmother. The two of them build all kinds of Rube Goldberg-like contraptions, including a tennis ball that Marcel converted into a vehicle, to help navigate the human-sized house. The house was more livable because of their inventiveness, but what Marcel missed were the dozens of relatives who had accidentally been moved when the house owner moved away.

Watching the film reminded me that home isn't just the structure around us, but the memories, treasures, and most of all, the people who have populated that house through time.