Wordy Wednesday–Making Home

I haven't really been paying attention, because, well, I can't remember why, but there's been a lot of chat about home keeping and the domestic arts on some of the corners of the internet–Kyra has nice links and nice thoughts about it, and I'm sure if you asked her she could explain it all to me, I mean you–and as the conversation has raged on, and I shouldn't enter in because I really haven't been paying attention, is it possible for me to hedge any more? What was that onion piece…

As the conversation has raged on I've hidden in my small corner muttering to myself both in guilt and in self justification. The self justification is not terribly interesting. It swirls on around the assigning of moral values to one kind of house work or another. I would like very very much to be morally superior to someone, but I have a sad and lonely feeling that housework isn't where, to use an Americanism, it's at. As I'm screaming at my children to clean up to my standards, I'm telling myself that I have to do that or they won't become godly upright people, but that's probably not true.

No, the guilt is sort of probably more interesting. What I like to do, and this will come as a great shock to those who know me, is to compare myself to people I like, both the very clean and orderly people, and the very cluttery creative people, and feel bad about myself on both counts. The person with the perfect house, I look at that and whisper, “oh man, that's so beautiful, if only I could be like that.” And the person with the cluttery relaxed comfortable house with lots of interesting lovely things and not having to worry about mussing the floor in winter, I think “oh man, I wish I was more relaxed and just better, just much much better than I am inside.” And then I come back and look angrily at my own house and my own heart and complain to God that he should have made into a different and better person.

But while I've been waiting around for that, for God to make me into a different better person, it occurred to me that the reason I am the way I am about my house…and you might be asking yourself, what way is that, or you may be saying, spare me, Oh God, from knowing about how she is in her house…it occurred to me that this is the longest I've ever lived anywhere. Twelve years is an awfully long time, practically a life time. But the length of time hasn't completely altered the underlying need for me to be able to move at a moment's notice. I often go through the house in my mind and mentally consider how long it would realistically take to pack it all up, or get rid of it all. I actually do know the answer to this question. With help, it takes exactly a week to get everything into boxes and out, but that's a lot a lot a lot of help. But I didn't just move a lot, I lived in a lot of spaces that weren't mine, with people I wasn't related to. And that produced a deep need to have some things exactly right. My mother doesn't believe this because when she comes nothing is exactly right or clean, but the need remains. In a life with very little control over space, the small space that was mine had to be exactly a certain way so as to produce a sense of belonging and home, where none truly existed. My mother accomplished this when I was but a child by lugging around brass candlesticks, and fold up furniture so that you could stop for coffee anywhere. Can God set a table in the wilderness? Why yes he can, with cake.

The great clash is that even though this is basically my home and I live here–well, it's the church house, it's not mine, I'll eventually be leaving, so I make very sure not to attach too much–my children feel completely and perfectly at home, and so they would like to be Cluttery Creative, but I'm still trying to be Just So, and so no one is ever all the way comfortable. I'd like to spiritualize that and say, we shouldn't feel at home because we are waiting for a greater glory, a perfect home above. But I shouldn't do that. The question, Can God set a Table in the wilderness, isn't the only question. It shifts, it changes. Can God set a Table at home? Can God set a Table where you are, even if you never move again? Probably he can.