Coming Home (Again)

Dearest Homekeeper,

It’s been six months since my last post.

In that time, almost everything on the outside changed. After eleven years of running a bed and breakfast and many years before that of packing boxes, moving across states, and creating a home for my family wherever we landed. So I closed a recent chapter in my life, moved to another state, and began a different position in a nonprofit.

And yet I still remain captivated by all things home.

I still find myself scrolling during downtime through photographs of homes and their décor in my spare time, noticing what feels inviting and what doesn’t, what creates a sense of welcome and what somehow misses the mark. Some interests, it seems, never leave us.

I’ve come to realize that “home” was never merely the 1884 house I lived in, making rooms welcoming for my guests and family, the decorating, or even the hospitality of serving breakfast and having snacks on hand. Those were simply expressions of something deeper.

Home is the place where people can exhale.

When I downsized for this move, I did it in a hurry, which left me far less time than I would have liked to think through decades' worth of possessions. That was probably a blessing in disguise; as a result, it got done quickly. My children will probably thank me someday for parting with so much. Yet as I looked at 2,200 square feet of furnishings reduced to fit about 1,000, I noticed what I innately and instinctively chose to keep.

The framed prints. The books. The baskets. The throw pillows and furniture blankets. The small antiques. The tchotchkes and keepsakes collected over a lifetime. None of them were necessities. But together they quietly say, a life matters. Someone lives thoughtfully here.

Home is where order creates peace, where a lamp left on in the evening becomes a welcome sight, where a basket of folded towels, a warm meal, or even a well-tended garden whispers, “Someone prepared this for you.”

My surroundings have changed, but the questions shaping me have not.

My first stop during my transition to my location was a VRBO that, in many ways, reminded me of the bed-and-breakfast I had just left. Except I wasn’t hosting! There were a few guest rooms, shared living spaces, a common kitchen and laundry, and each of us had an ensuite bedroom that became my retreat. The hostess outdid herself by beautifully landscaping the property. Birdhouses, lanterns, arbors, a fountain, and flowering gardens transformed the yard into a place of quiet delight. Even when I arrived in winter, it held promise. By spring and summer, it had become breathtaking.

It was the perfect 6-month landing place for a season when everything else felt unfamiliar and new. Her familiar decorating tastes were like mine, making it nice. My small bedroom became a sanctuary where I could catch my breath and slowly begin building a new rhythm.

Now I’m house-sitting for my son while he spends the upcoming year pursuing another graduate degree in public affairs at Harvard. His home is very different from mine—a 2700 square-foot house designed by an architect who has lived in it since the early 1990s. My son’s been making the home into his own over the past eighteen months, and there always seems to be another small project underway.

I have a corner large bedroom and bathroom downstairs to call my own.

One of the unexpected gifts of this season has been the reminder that “home” doesn’t require ownership or even permanence. It requires intention. I’ve brought in just enough of my favorite things to make my personal space feel familiar and peaceful. I appreciate my son’s warm industrial-style décor with its rustic influences, weathered wood, black metal, and earthy tones, while quietly weaving in touches that feel like me.

Topics have been written about here before on making a space your own, regardless of its size or style. I didn’t realize I would soon be living that lesson myself.

If all goes according to plan, one more transition awaits. In about a year, after my son returns, I’ll likely move into a loft of my own. Until then, much of what I own now rests, and is stacked to the ceiling, in one of the bays of the three-car garage in my current abode.

Life, it seems, has become a series of temporary dwellings that I get to “play” with.

I plan to continue to share about homekeeping, but not simply in the domestic sense. We’ll talk about creating welcoming spaces, the beauty of ordinary routines, hospitality, transitions, stewardship, the different seasons of life, and the quiet disciplines that help us dwell well wherever we find ourselves.

Perhaps that’s what this next season is really about … not finding the perfect home, but learning to dwell well wherever life leads.

Welcome back. I’ve missed this conversation. Feel free to contact me at my email if you have a question or want to see a topic covered.

With you in the keeping, Cathenry.ch@gmail.com

P.S. “The longer we live, the more we realize that life is a series of homes we are invited to inhabit with gratitude.” ~ Henri Nouwen