House as Home

As I prepare my ego for an unsuspected retreat --moving back home to Olympia with my parents-- I reflect on the concept of "home".

What is home? Is a house a home?

I'm reading a book called Life Would be Perfect if I Lived in That House, in which the author says, "if there's anything I've learned over the many years and many moves, it's this: a house is not the same as a home. Despite certain Muzak-sounding catchphrases of the real estate world -- "home buyer," "home sales," "home loans" -- the words "house" and "home" are not interchangeable. Your buy a house, but you make a home. You do not shop for a "home" anymore than you'd shop for a life."

I've always quarreled with my house. Like siblings, we irritate each other, a sentiment laced with unconditional love and affection. I used to wish my house were one of those new, pale-colored fixtures with white trim, plush carpets, pergo floors, and a perfectly manicured 4x4 backyard.

Our house is a litany of never-ending DIY projects. It conjures dust faster than the inside of a Dirt Devil, the windows are never clean, strange stale odors linger from pets past, and the furniture is anything but coordinated. To me, our expansive backyard only meant the chore of lawn-mowing, and the likely probability of stepping in sneaky, hidden dog shit.

I suspect that many, like myself, began to appreciate their childhood home as soon as they left it, either willfully or not. Thanksgiving break of my Freshman year, the familiar living room satisfied my pangs of homesickness and lulled my criticisms. For the time being.

My house is home.
One year, Olympia experienced a week-long power outage. Since our house runs primarily on propane, gathered on blankets near the fireplace, my mom gave myself and my two best girlfriends a most memorable and entertaining sex-talk.
Two years ago this fall, my parents were re-married at the head of our dining room table in an intimate ceremony.
That was the second wedding our home has housed. Not to mention the various parties and potlucks and annual dinner parties that I myself began to host for a few close friends.

And I am teeming with memories and smells from houses of friends. Houses are such intimate portals into family culture, the real innards of a family's dynamic. The magnetic decor on a refrigerator alone can give you extensive insight into a family's values. Houses have discernible smells, usually consisting of a combination of laundry detergent mixed with one parent's prevailing hobby, like skiing or painting.
When I was younger, I loved how if I sniffed an item left in my room, I could almost always discern its rightful owner.

Houses are also not homes. We manicure our lawns, obsessively clean, we decorate and re-decorate. We see our house as a reflections of us, and we want our reflection to be spotless. It's like in those episodes of Hoarders, when the house looks perfectly normal from the outside, but upon opening the door, viewers are exposed to a chaotic and often disgusting mess. Houses allow us to live inside a facade that we can prune or manicure or leave well alone.

Exiting my apartment this morning, the door to my left was slightly ajar, and I couldn't resist the temptation to look inside. Every day, I come home to a short hallway of closed, black doors. I suppose I had assumed that nothing existed beyond the doors. To my surprise there was bright green and yellow wall paper, carpet, tile, and a strong foul smell of cigarettes.

Houses are homes, and so much more. We have evolved to live a domesticated life, inside these structures.

I wonder what a homeless person would say about a house.