Contemplation: On Wanting a Home

I have been staying at my friend’s house for just over a week. It is lovely. You can tell he took real care putting it together, and the area is quiet, the kind of neighbourhood where people say hi. The last place I stayed was well put together too. But something about being here has made me think a thing I had not let myself think before: I want this for myself.

Both places I have stayed were put together with care. So maybe it isn’t only the house. Maybe I needed to stand in it to know.

Part of it is the care he has put into the place. You can see it in how the house is arranged, how it has been thought about. Standing in it, I feel calmer than I have in a while.

Part of it is him. My friend has a steady presence, and he is someone who can hold things for me. I tend to be the one holding things for other people, and it is a different feeling to receive it instead of give it.

Part of it is plainer than that. The area is quiet. There are no delivery mopeds tearing past at two in the morning, and I am a light sleeper, so I notice. It feels safe here, and grown-up, while still being central.

Underneath all of it is the thing I keep circling back to. I want a place that is mine. Not the size of it, but the feeling of it. Somewhere put together with the same care I can see in this house.

A place I can call mine.

There is a risk in it too. I know how easily wanting something can tighten into needing it, and how much disappointment lives in that grip. So I am not sure whether naming this want is a healthy thing or the start of an attachment I will have to manage.

Notice one thing about where you are living right now that you have stopped seeing, good or bad. We adjust to our surroundings until they go invisible. Sometimes it takes standing somewhere else to notice what we had, or what we are missing.

It took standing in someone else’s home to know I wanted mine.

I curate spaces and experiences, through sound, breath and intuition.

This is the work I do with people, one to one: sitting with what lives beneath the story. If that speaks to you, sessions are open here.