Home
Dorothy Parker was a notoriously indifferent housekeeper. Ashtrays overflowed, dogs pooped on the floor and dirty clothes mingled with the clean. As she once said, “All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.” No matter the state of the place, we all find our way home. In this issue, our writers map the way.
Live Alone and Like It
Word Count 1124
I was desperate to live alone. As the youngest of four children, I had always shared a bedroom with a sister; in boarding school, we were all assigned doubles, the better, I suppose, to acquire the patience necessitated by shared living. But I had already mastered that art! Stupid, then, to go to college in New York City where living alone is a fever dream only to be achieved by the very rich.
Right before graduation my grandfather, who owned a gas station in Amarillo, Texas, died and left me $10,000. It was more money than I had ever had, but it wasn’t life changing money. One Sunday, while scanning the New York Times real estate listings, I came across a listing for an apartment on Riverside Drive for $30,000. This was an unheard of price for an apartment in that neighborhood of stately limestones and aged intellectuals like Hannah Arendt. If I put 20% of my inheritance down, I could just swing the mortgage. I went to the Open House trembling with hope.
Why Here?
Word Count 790
When I was about seven years old, I had that moment where you look around and say to yourself, “I live here!” That simple sentence carries extraordinary emotion and weight, not to mention confusion. I live here, on this street, in this city?
That night I said to my mother, “Isn’t it amazing that we live here, in this flat, in Montreal?” I wanted her to share in my wonder that there was this world, and I had just discovered I had a place in it.
“Don’t remind me,” she said.
Variations Of The Interior
Word Count 1446
In San Juan, in the bedroom where I spent most of my early childhood, a full-length mirror hung on the inside of the closet door. Our family had moved from Puerto Rico to New York City a few years earlier, but we kept the apartment on Joffre Street. My sister and I were down there on a school break, and I sat alone, cross-legged on the tile floor staring at my reflection, trying to separate my younger, mischievous self from my now shy and uncertain one. I was thirteen. Blue, for the first time, was a feeling throughout my body rather than a color to behold, and I painted a self-portrait.
Home Body
Word Count 764
At 8:00 a.m. workers arrive to install our new heating and cooling system. I steel myself for a day of noise and disruption. My husband has a studio, our converted garage, for his painting and music, so he’s not distracted by what goes on in the house. My office is a small den open to the living room; much of the work will take place a few feet away. Will I be able to work? Do I need to? It’s a beautiful day, sunny and mild. I’m a half-hour walk from Balboa Park. I could sit on a sunny bench with a book; I could go to one of the park’s museums, have lunch at my choice of lovely spots. I could visit a friend, go to the library, get a pedicure. I could, but despite the commotion, I prefer to stay home.
I Want To Go Home
Word Count 465
Since I left for college I have lived in eleven places. Some dwellings brief, others with the false expectation that it would be forever. Each had its comforts as well as difficulties, be they structural or relational. The furniture I dragged from apartment to house back to yet another apartment did give a sense of familiarity making it feel “homey”, but if I was unsettled within myself, or focusing on someone else's happiness, no chest of drawers could comfort.
For a few years I lived in an ashram where I practiced meditation to discover “the home within”. I found a potent place of inner silence unbound by walls or body – a“home” no matter where I was or with whom.