Home Sweet Home

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Might be wondering about writing about “HOME” on Mother’s Day? Well my mom, like all the other moms I knew growing up was a homemakers. That is the occupation moms take up after they propagate. Don’t know why? They didn’t make the house, but that is what they put down on tax forms for occupation. Homemaker.

Now a housekeeper is a person, usually hired to come by and tidy up, but a homemaker is a person who puts all those little touches that make a house a home.

I don’t remember my mom being much of a homemaker, but most of the stuff was already in place as I remember. Besides I spent most of my time in my room.

I do remember mom taking me downtown to try on pants, which I hated, and make me wait in the department store haberdashery as she tried on hats without bringing any of them home. I remember mom being the parent responsible for taking me to the hospital after being bitten by a dog or falling out of a tree at camp or face first smash on the street off my bike and then telling my cousin how much I cried at being stitched up. I remember mom living in the kitchen listening to the radio and drinking coffee wearing an apron washing dishes and fiddling around. That seemed to be her spot at home.

Now mom, while living as a homemaker, was the probably the most influential woman in my life, but I don’t remember any life changing conversations, but she was there when I needed money to borrow and never paid her back. I never got that special “only my mom can cook this” recipe since she didn’t have one. She was the go-between from the autocratic father and in her lack of responsibility manner never punished me. She would play the game of “Hide the M&Ms” and I would always find them. She introduced me to the ocean and waited for me to learn how to swim. She was there when I would come home late at night without asking questions. Mom would even warn girls I would bring over to the house and sit in a room with a 3-watt blue light and have indecent liberties with that I should be avoided at all cost. Thanks mom for the support.

Once my brother and I had grown of sufficient size as not to be tended, she made a moderate attempt to be famous again by learning how to play golf. Now golf requires you belong to a country club where the rich people play. So she could mingle with the famous people of this burg and she got good at it and won a lot of silver and got her picture in the newspaper.

Then again she paid me back after dad died.

So let me get back to the to the subject: Home.

Now a house is nothing but a shelter from rain and cold and wind and the summer’s heat, but a home is a place you hold dear in your heart. A home is a place that has special memories, but I looked at all the buildings that have been my “homes” and wonder?

I lived in a home with the parents and a brother, but the family, that is the key to making a home, was dysfunctional and the building was never warm. The house I call home now I’ve lived in for over three decades, yet it still feels distant.

Another family was living here when I went to see it with a realtor. An old woman and two small children stepped out onto the front porch when I arrived and wandered through their home. I’m sure there were memories and a history here but when I moved in all the furniture was gone, all the kitchen cabinets were empty and the rooms were quickly filled with all “my stuff”. The only reminder that anyone had lived here previously was an empty glass beer mug left on the living room floor.

The belongings I had decided to keep from my previous “home” shared with my first wife were arranged and for a couple of years was a “Mansland” while I continued to work all day, maintain some sanity while trying to deal with my mother’s antics and crossing some forbidden grounds.

The other person who shared this abode with me rearranged my life and my surroundings, several times, yet the four walls never had that “Home Sweet Home” feeling. It was a place to come home to at night, a place to eat and sleep, a place to hang my hat, but was never comfortable. There is plenty of space for me now but I find myself wandering around in it. From room to room I venture not finding what I’m seeking until I go outside.

After years and years of being an indoor person, I find my “home” is outside. Perhaps I’ve been trained or the many years I’ve spent in the shed, I have found a new appreciation for sunshine, trees, fresh air, wind, and wild life.

I also appreciate that the rain does not fall on my head any more or that I don’t have to wear two sweatshirts in the winter, but my day doesn’t start until I move into the forest in the backyard.

Having not begotten any homo sapiens, well maybe, this home has held many children though they had four feet or fins. She was a mother to them, feeding them, clothing them, and taking care of their every need. She named each one and cuddled them as every other mother would. And she buried them.

So after providing the substance of life, I sit back in my home and enjoy the activities presented at no cost.  

I must be a mother too?