A Home for the Heart
“The inner walls of a home are threaded with the textures of one’s soul, a subtle weave of presences.”
This week’s blog post starts with a snippet from a Super Soul Sunday episode. Oprah asks Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopalian priest and author of thirteen books on spirituality, “What steeps your soul”? Taylor responds, “It is where I live. My front porch is my medicine cabinet”. And I thought to myself, that is a heart home.
During this pandemic year, I have been reflecting on a home for the heart. That is, not my residential address but rather where my heart finds residence. Retirement nears, and we are not sure yet where we will settle, and I worry that I might not find a home for my heart.
In 1997, at the age of 39, I purchased Charlotte Kasl’s book, A Home for the Heart: Creating Intimacy and Community with Loved Ones, Neighbors and Friends. The pages are now yellowed and pencil marks are fading but as I glance through the pages, my older self remembers what drew me to this book over 20 years ago. I had always felt I never quite belonged. For too many years I was reluctant to be my true self because I thought I would be ostracized. Charlotte Kasl, a psychotherapist and Quaker, held my hand as she introduced me to the voices in my head and helped me better understand how to relate to others while remaining true to myself, how to find a home for my heart.
I introduce the theme, A Home for the Heart, into my life story writing workshops; it is also included in my free writing guide, Pandemic Ponderings. I am fascinated by the stories workshop participants have written about their heart home. Women have found their heart home in nature, community, childhood homes, and current residences. They have written of walking through fields, sleeping by a stream, childhood memories of family dinners, and specific rooms in a house. Music has featured in many of the stories – CBC and BBC radio, a mother playing the piano, and families singing together. Nests have also been a common thread – snuggling in a handmade quilt, hiding away in a treehouse, or always finding a spot, no matter where they live, to cocoon. Family, friends, and the company of other women have also helped create a home for the heart.
In Where Love Has Lived, John O’Donohue writes,
A home is not simply a building; it is the shelter around the intimacy of a life. Coming in from the outside world and its rasp of force and usage, you relax and allow yourself to be who you are. The inner walls of a home are threaded with the textures of one's soul, a subtle weave of presences. If you could see your home through the lens of the soul, you would be surprised at the beauty concealed in the memory your home holds. When you enter some homes, you sense how the memories have seeped to the surface, infusing the aura of the place and deepening the tone of its presence. Where love has lived, a house still holds the warmth. Even the poorest home feels like a nest if love and tenderness dwell there.
His words speak of four walls and a roof but also the emotions reminiscent of a heart home.
So where is my heart home? For many years I would have said it was in the country of my birth, the Netherlands. We immigrated to Canada when I was 6-year-old. I quickly picked up English and acclimated to my new home but I left behind my best friend and my grandparents, cousins, and other relatives. I left behind cycling to the bakery with my father for fresh bread, Sunday dinners at my oma’s, and the parades, so many parades! I have visited numerous times over the years and every time I flew towards the coast of my homeland - catching my first glimpse of sand dunes, farms, and tulip fields - I would shed tears of loneliness - and happiness. This was the home for my heart. Six years ago, I was once again feeling homesick and rented a little apartment in the old part of Leiden, where I was born. This time I did not cry when I sighted land. I spent two weeks walking the streets of my hometown, perusing markets, savouring favourite foods from my childhood, and cycling by the houses where my grandparents had lived. One night I hosted my cousins who brought old photos and we shared family stories. I was flooded with warm memories but the aching in my heart was gone. This was no longer my heart home.
We moved a lot when I was young, every three years or so my parents would get restless and we would pack up once again. We were renters and sometimes moved to the next street, other times to a new city. My parents didn’t buy a house until I was in college and by that time I was rarely home. During all those years, I never felt like I had a heart home.
Then I got married, and we had our girls, and I began to create a home for my heart. We have lived in the same housing co-op now for over 30 years. But it is not our actual townhouse that is home. Instead, it is the breeze that blows the trees outside our bedroom window, snuggling in bed with my husband enjoying our morning coffee, chatting with our neighbours over the backyard fence, and greeting our children with hugs when they come to visit. It is sitting at my writing desk in a sunlit room, nestling in amongst the foliage in the garden with a good book, and listening to the laughter of children in the playground. And, it is long walks along the river with my dog, cycling to visit my mother in the village, and smelling the briny ocean while enjoying brilliant sunsets. I suppose, much like the stories shared by the women in my writing workshops, my heart home can also be found in nature, community, and within the four walls where I live.
Have you thought about where your heart home might be? Is it a place or a feeling? Is it one home or multiple places? I would love to hear where you have found a home for your heart.