Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.

{quote by Charles Dickens}

My dad's oldest sister has an autographed picture of Mr. Rogers. It's framed. Hanging in her bedroom. Where most people have wedding pictures, or photographs of their mothers or children or grandchildren is a picture of the man who prefers sweaters that zip--as opposed to button--a picture of the silver-haired man that asks everyone to be his neighbor. If you knew her, this would make perfect sense.

We found this out Sunday night when two of my cousins (from opposite sides of the family) showed up fortuitously on my parent's front porch. This morsel of information offered up at the dining table over dessert provided several minutes worth of chortling, from both sides of the family.

Also, at church on Sunday, we discussed houses. Well, Home, more like. As in, what makes one. How the things you bring into it, the things you surround yourself with, create that matchless, marvelous feeling of home. There's no better feeling, no feeling more important, really. It's something I think about all the time.

What would Grandma and Grandpa's house be without Grandpa's desk, or Grandma's loom off the kitchen. What would it be like without the sound of the big white freezer in the family room, humming the low basso tune while keeping Snelgrove's ice cream cold deep down in its belly.

My parents have an Amish quilt above the sofa in the family room. It's been in all three houses we've lived in. Color palettes for furnishings have been determined by it. Upstairs in Mom and Dad's closet is Dad's basket. The one with spare change for the bus, safety pins and those plastic things that keep your socks together in the laundry. It's all there for the taking (or so we've told ourselves over the years in a lemonade stand crisis, when the ice cream man's music plays faintly three streets over, or when a button goes missing at the last minute.) There's the picture of the red bucket in the hall and the big bulletin board of family photos. These things make home Home.

Perhaps I'll never know the secret ingredients to create that feeling, but for my aunt that picture of Mr. Rogers, for whatever reason, makes her feel at home. Often it's not the things in our house that make it a home, but the people inside. Their voices. Laughter. The familiar scales played on the piano late at night when you're trying to watch television. The scuff of someone's feet on the wood floors early in the morning. And the knock at the door, the familiar finger rhythm of a neighbor.

A few years ago, I made a list of the homes I admire (which basically parallels the list of people I admire.) The assignment didn't stop there. I was to describe what under those roofs and between those four walls made me feel that ineffable feeling, that sense of place, that sense of self, that sense of being. It included such things as: rooms full of books, walls full of art, birthday traditions, house rules, religious practices. It was as varied as the households on it and included houses under which I felt that ineffable feeling of home.

A few weeks ago, in my Grandma's home near the mountains, I balanced my sister's baby on my forearm. We made our way down the hallway with the bookshelves full of trinkets from their world travels: cowbells from Switzerland, figurines from Germany, crystal from Italy. Excitedly, we opened the cupboards at the end of the hall, which are stubborn like age-d joints that haven't been used in a long while. Neatly in place were the alphabet puzzles, farm animals and the big red toy barn. We stood cows on their four legs, propped up trees perpendicular to the ground and fussed with the letters of the alphabet. Opening that cupboard was like opening the doors to a second childhood.

All of us are the products of the elements to which we are exposed.

I love this idea. Which things in my life I've been exposed to that have become a part of me? I am grateful to parents and extended family and friends for exposing me to all the beauty life has to offer. To my parents for creating home and to so many others whose houses are not just four walls, but homes away from home.

Nights at the Round Table

Today for work N and I went to look at tables. At one store we saw a round table with a long linen tablecloth that nearly reached the floor. What a tablecloth, we both thought. N began to design accent runners while I imagined making a secret hide-out underneath, perfect for pirates and princesses or an afternoon camp out on a rainy day. Regardless of its purpose, we both thought the cloth to be beautiful and filed it away in our minds for future use.

We have a round table in our kitchen at home. Dad built it at the family shop. It's been in all three houses we've lived in and I suppose life wouldn't be the same without it. It's the perfect size for two to sit and share the newspaper and serves as an impromptu music stand in a string rehearsal if someone has forgotten theirs. (I used to shift my violin music from stand to table just for a change of scenery and a chance to look out the window.) It's the place to perch in the fall to watch the crab apple tree turn brilliant shades of golds and reds just outside the window and in the springtime birds eat breakfast while we do the same. At Christmas it's where we put the Swedish starters like the goat's cheese and the limpa bread to be eaten before Swedish dinner. It's where the angel stands suspending the star and singing praises to the heavens announcing the birth of the Baby Jesus. It's where Mom likes to put the latest high school pottery masterpieces. Currently Rich's creations reign supreme. His brightly colored five-in-one vase is there round the clock. Anyone who comes to visit gets a mini history lesson on Chard's magnum opus.

Upon the table's belly are lovingly plotted purple and green Crayola marker doodles from a day at the red brick house when my sister and I were feeling mischievous. It served as the canvas for play dough sessions on summer afternoons. Once my brother made a big salt dough pretzel and set it out on the table to dry in the sun, all curled and crisscrossed. Upon pretzel removal, like a child's shadow outlined in chalk, was the outline of a pretzel, branded into the wood. I used to trace the lines with my finger when I got bored.

In line today at the store N and I professed our love of round tables to each other, and then bought a square one, but the space calls for square. Round tables foster conversation. They look visually pleasing in a square room, and are easy to cozy up to with a large crowd. And, if you throw a large tablecloth or giant sheet over the top, I'm certain they're the perfect framework for a pretty awesome fort.

climbing colors

Many of the houses in my parent's neighborhood are covered in ivy. This time of year it turns brilliant shades of red and orange. There's a bright patch along the back fence in my parent's yard. It was begging for a portrait yesterday.

finger food

My dad makes words out of broken pretzels. He lines them up on the white counter top until someone walks along and appreciates them. Abstract and primitive-looking, it takes a few minutes to de-code his creation. I will slowly smile in his direction, giving him the creative credit he deserves, and go about my business. Like letters being erased from a chalkboard, the pieces disappear one by one as the night continues.

Recently, he's had a hankering for senbei rice crackers, something he learned to love while living in Japan. Mom obliges him and a box sits next to the cookie jar, his first stop after he walks in the door from work. A few weeks ago I came home late. The house was dark and dad was at the piano. Bifocals resting gently on his nose he was carefully studying his music. I walked towards the cookie jar and noticed his latest creation. Smiling, I got his attention. "Dad," I said, gesturing in the direction of this little rice man. He looked over his bi-focals, smiled back at me and turned to face his music. I think it's one of his best.

between four walls

I spent part of my afternoon at 1932 today. Grandma and I spent time going through photos and rearranging art in the dining room. It was much needed; to be in that house, around her, among those things -- pictures of her and the family. Pictures of grandpa, handsome in his navy whites. A picture of the house in Iowa with the attic room long enough for the boys to throw the football indoors and far enough away from the rest of the house for noisy card games on Christmas morning before it was time to unwrap presents.

I spent time running up and down the stairs searching for a few things for our project today. One of my favorite views of Grandma's house is the one from halfway down the stairs, just as your hands hit the banister. The front half of the living room is visible, the mantle, the little desk and chair and the oil painting near Aspen Lane. You can see the alcove where the doorbell chimes hang and the little picture of the sunflowers right beside the latch to the front door. Out the window nearest the fireplace is the side yard where the peonies bloom along the picket fence in the summer, filling the yard with fragrance.

From that fixed point today, I thought, I hope someday to have a home as lovely as this, full of things with meaning and memory. A summation of a life well-lived. A place where children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can come and sit and stay awhile and listen to stories about Cape Town and Stockholm, Pelham or Brigham. A place to send thank you cards and letters from far away places. A place where wedding pictures gather above bookshelves on the landing upstairs and mementos are tacked up on the bulletin board in the basement bedroom. A home that says hang your hat, rest your head and help yourself to the Snelgroves in the freezer.

Grandma's home is lovely from any angle. I have memories from every nook and cranny in that house. From the green laundry room downstairs to the off-white closet in the room where Mom and Karen used to sleep. I love that house. I love the feeling I get when I walk in the backdoor or drive up the street and see the shutters open or the light on over the sink where the green glass rests on the windowsill. But mostly, I love Grandma. I love who she is, what she has accomplished and the person I want to become after spending together.

through an open door

I've been chatting with friends lately about home. About what makes a place feel like home. What we wish for in our future homes - the elements, the feelings, the traditions. About the power of memory and sensory and how we long to go back, but know that logic and reason prevent us from really doing it.

I've long been fascinated with the idea of what makes a house a home. Is it a process? Arrived at after many years of living in one solitary place? Is there a blueprint to follow? How do you create that feeling you get when you walk in the back door? Home should be a place to not only lay your head, but your heart; somewhere to turn and not be turned away.

What makes us so anxious to leave the place we call home? To stretch our legs? To prove we can make it on our own, leaving the mark of our beloved home behind? Yet, no matter where we land, we long to make that place, near or far from our beginning, feel like the place we so desperately wanted to leave. We make homemade recipes, hoping that the smell of Aunt's cookies or Grandma's bread will disperse and infuse our surroundings, creating a semblance of sanctuary. We sing the songs of childhood, strumming out the chords on Grandpa's guitar. Wrapping ourselves in Mom's quilt, we reach for the tattered photograph taken with Sister on the front porch, brother's silly faces making us smile joyfully back at the lens. Searching for self, we grab the yearbook or the birthday card or the going-away well-wishes from best friends, our fingers tracing the hand-written sentiments. We yearn for days in school hallways and nights at weekend hang outs.

Amidst bread crumbs, quilt squares and old Christmas cards we sit, longing for it. If we are quiet enough, still enough, home encircles; swathing in sounds and smells. We hear Father's footsteps at the back door and the breeze through the upstairs window on a rainy night. Or, a chorus of children's voices shouting night-game "You're-it's!" and "Come-out-come-out-where-ever-you-are's!" Whether we're near or far, our senses take us back to the place we started from. The place we left. The place we can always return, by land, by sea or just by memory.

"Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration." {Charles Dickens}

Going home, going home,
I'm a going home.
Quiet-like, some still day,
I'm just going home.
It's not far, just close by,
Through an open door.

Work all done, care laid by,
Going to fear no more.
Mother's there, expecting me,
Father's waiting too.
Lots of folk gathered there,
All the friends I knew.

Nothing's lost, all's gain,
No more fear or pain,
No more stumbling by the way,
No more longing for the day,
Going to roam no more.

Morning star lights the way,
Restless dreams all done.
Shadows gone, break of day,
Real life has begun.
There's no break, there's no end,
Just a living on.
Wide awake with a smile,
going on and on...

Going home, going home,
I'm just going home.
It's not far, just close by,
Through an open door.
I am going home...
I'm just going home...
{Dvorak}

The Yellow Brick House

I'm here on the floor in 2186, M to my right, sipping hot cocoa. We're nearly furniture-less, and loving it. The purchase of an IKEA futon was put to profit last night after W & R used their muscles to help us do all the hammering.

We love it here - this house with it's drafty windows, old heating vents and creaky hardwood floors. It's surprising how filling a place full of a few things (we all still have a little ways to go) makes four walls Home. Such a small word for a place with so much significance.

Our Little House has as much to offer us as we have to offer it: a great backyard, a long driveway (only notable after the snowstorm on Friday) a patio, a front porch; a bay window anticipating a table (we're hoping sooner rather than later) future dinner parties and late-night lingerers, a cellar (not quite sure what we're going to put in there, but Mern has a few ideas) and a great basement room for all things futons, games and spontaneous dance parties.
It's lights out here at 2186, at least for me.

Goodnight room.
Goodnight moon.
Goodnight air.
Goodnight noises everywhere.