What Home Should Be (Materially)
I moved four times last year. I’ll move three or four times this year. Living in so many relatively similar places allowed me to pick out what really matters in life. Materially, anyway. So without further ado, a list of things I’ll likely require before I can go from calling a place “wherever the hell I live” to “home.”
First, and this is the key, I want nothing more and nothing less than what I need. Whenever I’m struggling my instinct is to go to my room, pull everything out and into the center of it, then systematically put things in their proper places. While I’m doing this, going through everything I own, I realize that there are some things, many things, that I don’t need. That I don’t use. That I don’t care for. And so I remove them. I don’t like having more than I need.
I’d rather have less than more, I think. I’ve always been stingy about buying things. Ever since I was four, when I’d take a week to eat a Hershey bar (in the style of Charlie Buckett) or save my Halloween candy until it was easter, I’ve valued the idea that it’s better to save. So when I’m out shopping I’m rarely suckered by that checkout aisle. I know what I need, I get it, I toy with the idea of picking up a pack of starbursts, and then I snap myself out of it and leave. Because there’s $1.25 more for an airplane ticket, or whatever I’m going to spend all that savings on one day.
So I end up with less than what I want. I like it. I’m used to it. I’m never more upset with myself than when I’ve bought something I know is utterly useless. I want everything to have its purpose. I don’t like waste.
I don’t let myself ever really like my dorm rooms. I admire their design or their location or the architectural aspects of the building, but I never feel any remorse leaving them. They are, by definition, impermanent fixtures in my life. Knowing that from the outset allows me to stave off attachment. I had a nice view, this year and last. I had a nice location, this year and last. I liked the buildings themselves, this year and last. I miss certain aspects of Madison as I’m sure I will Schenley. But I was beyond eager to throw my life back into three suitcases last May. I was ready to leave. I enjoyed not looking back.
This place, this home that I’m looking for, that’s when I’ll let myself get attached again. Not until then. Otherwise my heart’s too easily broken. I wouldn’t sit at my desk back in my new Wisconsin bedroom. I didn’t even like sleeping in my old bed. Too easy to close my eyes and picture being in my old room. Last thing I wanted to do was become attached to another place I, by necessity, have to leave. What’s the point in investing emotion in a place I don’t want to live in rather permanently?
So this home of mine. Forget the psychological nonsense. It’s going to have only what I need, need in my materialistic sense that is so far removed from the actual idea of need. It’s going to be less stark than the dorms I’ve lived in. The dorms I’ve really gone for broke in. I have nothing here. No furniture, no decorations, nothing remotely personal save for the supplies and the books that I’ve deemed essential. What’s the point? It’s only eight months.
It has to have a dishwasher. I don’t use dishes here because I don’t have a dishwasher. I hate the idea of a dirty sponge just lying around, then used to make something supposedly clean. I like clean. I like shining plates stacked up next to stacks of cups and stacks of bowls. Stacks are nice. A dishwasher lets me eat chips out of bowls instead of bags. There’s an OCD comfort in that. Everything in the kitchen becomes clean and ordered with a dishwasher.
Tupperware helps here as well. When we had a mite problem, it was a gross time when you’d be eating your chips and then discover you may or may not have been crunching down on tiny black round insects, we put all of our snacks into large clear containers. It got rid of the mites and it looked like a Martha Stewart magazine. It was everything my sister ever wanted. If we had to have junk food, might as well get rid of the labels and make it look pretty. I liked the look too, not just because it made it seem like we were on the set of a tv show that didn’t want to have to pay for certain brands to be shown on air. It’s better. Getting rid of the packaging makes it about the food being in your world, rather than bringing that brand into the house.
A washer and dryer goes along with the dishwasher. Having one in the room, having one you don’t have to pay for, that’s but a dream come true. Going down to the basement to do laundry means dishing out money and not even being able to put on clothes right of the dryer for your trouble, or else risk being caught by any passerby in the midst of it. I don’t have a particular affinity for doing laundry or the smell of it or anything else girls say, but I love putting neatly folded clothes in their proper place.
The clothes themselves are important. I started doing this over winter break, getting brutal. I have a lot of really lovely clothes. And there are quite a few that are either too big for me, that I don’t wear, that don’t look good on me, or some combination of the bunch. Why pretend? Why not keep the stuff I’ll use and let go of the rest? Why not know what looks good and be more careful buying things next time? When I see how much closet space is filled by clothes I haven’t worn in months, I want to throw things. It gets under my skin. It’s stupid.
Everything at home should have a purpose and rise to the occasion. Everything should have a proper place. When the place is clean there are no piles. Everything in drawers and cupboards and closets is something that I use and use often. The way things are set up will make sense.
I got close to this in the dorm, but not close enough. I refuse to invest in the other things my home needs (a couch, a tv, a good desk, bookshelves, etc.) because I want these things to last. When I finally buy them, I want it to be for home. Until I find home, I’ll be content with not having it all. I’ll make it work. Ultimately, having roommates is a big part of this problem. I can’t have things just the way I like them because everyone needs to be accounted for. It’s not all my space. I literally have dreams about a place all my own. It’s going to be lovely.
There are three more things I’d like. I’d like a fireplace. I like curling up on a couch under a blanket and being warm, certainly next to a fireplace. Who doesn’t like that crackle and that light and that warmth?
I’d also like a porch. Wrap around is ideal, but it could be a normal one. So long as there’s a rocking chair on it, I’d like to read and rock back and forth and pretend I’m Tom Sawyer on a nice hot summer day, blue skies and all. No matter where I’m living, if I have a house with a porch it’ll feel like Hannibal.
Lastly, I want a yard. This is, I guess, for a house. I know most people only get a house when they’re married or at least in a relationship, but I’ve been picturing living alone. This extra stuff is all for a house I suppose, an apartment can’t have a yard. But whenever I get a house, I want one. I want one in back for a grill, a few trees for a hammock (I won’t pretend I’ll ever get my woods back) and a nice picket fence if I have neighbors too close by (I have to be realistic). Out front, I want just enough of a yard so that I don’t necessarily have to talk to people passing by. Again, unrealistic to want that grand field we had in Mequon. So I ask for just enough for distance, and maybe a few trees. Yes. That’d be nice.
Not too much now, is it?
