on the way home

“I always thought of myself as a house. I was always what I lived in. It didn't need to be big. It didn't even need to be beautiful. It just needed to be mine.”
~ George Monroe, Life as a House

Recently, my husband and I received an interesting lesson in the power of shifting perspectives.

What happened was, we put our house on the market and we almost bought another. Actually, the first property fell through; but then we found a second house we liked. Both shared so many features nearly every homeowner dreams about: gorgeous wraparound staircase, huge master suite, big backyard, extra bedrooms. So we surprised ourselves just a little when we ended up opting to stay in our two-bedroom condo.

It’s not that our humble little abode has everything we’ve always wanted. In fact, by certain legitimate standards it’s somewhat short on space, and there’s no backyard for our dogs. But as we waded through the process of trying to sell, it gradually occurred to us that for now, the house is simply ... enough. The place I’d noncommittally referred to as “my husband’s townhome” when we first got married has somehow become a reassuring refuge for us all. And for the time being, that’s more than sufficient.

I wondered how we’d come to this realization. I think it had to do with the time spent trying to sell to some anonymous stranger. We cleaned all the closets. We scrubbed all the floors. We positioned scented candles in the bedrooms. We did laundry and dishes, and polished the faucets, and vacuumed the carpets each day. And then we began to make our list of all the things that made it special. The list grew, and it grew, and it grew. And in the end, we simply sold ourselves.

Some years ago, a missionary from my church spent time with the people of Africa. He brought back startling pictures of houses built with hardened clay blocks atop crumbling rubble foundations. The floors were dirt, the doors were cardboard and the roofs were made of straw. He stayed with extended families of aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, all of whom slept and ate and lived in a single room. And yet in nearly every photograph, those people were inexplicably peaceful, even occasionally laughing. Despite their poverty, in the face of constant hunger and hardship, they had somehow mastered the art of simple gratitude for each new day. And here we sit, one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, with rates of depression and suicide that constantly top the charts.

The night after we’d taken down the realtor sign, I brought home a DVD. My husband popped a bowl of popcorn and we sat together on the couch and watched. The dogs assumed their usual posts – Maizy in my husband’s lap; Grant on the sofa gazing out his window, the self-appointed family scout with his well-gnawed bone between his paws. It was a cozy, comfortable evening, unexciting by almost anyone’s standards. Springtime leaves were just beginning to blossom on the trees out back, and the little French door to our deck stood open. We’d had our dinner, the dishes were done, the breeze wafted quietly through the room, and we were all together.

That’s when we knew we were home.