My Heart Is In My Home
“What if together we reshape, expand, and add on to the idea of the homemaker? A homemaker is anyone whose heart is in their home.”
Photo by Katie Bernotsky on Unsplash
I need to give some background to this blog post. I’ve been so sick this week. I have not felt like reading, writing, or anything at all, for that matter. I also planned to skip writing a blog post this week - but synchronicity intervened.
A home for my heart has always had a deep meaning for me. As a child and adolescent, we moved every three years. This made it difficult to form friendships and I never felt like I belonged. Then, in 1998, I read, A Home for the Heart: Creating Intimacy and Community with Loved Ones, Neighbors and Friends by Charlotte Kasl. This book helped me find a home for my heart and the book, full of pencilled notations and folded pages, still lives on my bookshelf. I wrote a blog post about A Home for the Heart in June 2021. It is one of my most read blog posts. A Home for the Heart is also a theme from my life story writing workshops. One of the questions I suggest women reflect on is, what places hold your heart and your stories? Where is your heart home? Some women find this easy to answer. Some realize they don’t have a heart home. Recently I subscribed to a new magazine, taproot, which offers 'inspiration for makers, doers and dreamers'. My first copy arrived this week. It sits on my bookshelf, waiting to be read. Last night I was scrolling through Instagram while my husband prepared dinner downstairs. Taproot had posted an excerpt from Who Is A Homemaker? - an essay written by Kirsten Petroska Hussey. The words caught my eye. I took the magazine from the bookshelf and read the essay. And, as all these stars aligned, I felt compelled to pull out my computer to write a blog post, even though I feel like shit and my head struggles to string words together.
My husband stayed home with our oldest daughter for the first year of her life. Our second daughter was born thirteen months after her sister. We tried to balance two babies, two careers and childcare; it was not easy. We decided I would stay home until they started school. It was during a conversation with our insurance broker, updating our life insurance, that the word first arose. He asked about my occupation. I struggled with my response. I had so many roles, however, none paid a salary. He wrote ‘homemaker’ on the form, with a dismissive shrug. Interestingly, I felt the same only recently when we met with our financial planner to discuss our retirement plans. Again, the same question, what was my occupation? I answered that I blogged and taught life story writing workshops, and I was researching a book I wanted to write. He asked, how much do you make? I responded. With a dismissive shrug, he wrote retired on the form.
Am I a homemaker once again, I wondered? I think of how dismissive I was of my own mother as an adolescent. I remember my mother’s tears one day as my father headed off on a business trip, I headed off to university, and my brothers headed off to work. No one needs me anymore, she cried, what am I now?
The Instagram post I read last night from taproot quotes author Kirsten Petroska Hussey from her essay.
“What if together we reshape, expand, and add on to the idea of the homemaker? A homemaker is anyone whose heart is in their home. This title belongs to anyone who often finds themselves sifting through their cupboards looking for culinary inspiration, or who takes the scraps of some long-finished (or abandoned) project and creates a little something for themselves, or who delights in a room filled with music and laughter, all the chicks home safe in the nest, or who finds peace in beams of afternoon sunlight studded with motes of dust. A homemaker is anyone who can feel the heartache of leaving home along with the hope they may find it again in someplace new.”
I am beginning to make notes about what needs to be packed, donated, and taken to the dump as we prepare to move to our island house next summer. I know I will be making things in this home. I will write, quilt, garden, cook, and create a welcoming space for family and friends. I will fill this sun-filled house with plants, paintings, books, music, and the smell of baking. I will listen to the sound of the approaching wind through the trees. I will feel the morning sun on my back as I wait for a visit from the kingfisher to our pond. My husband and I will drink wine and play cribbage by the fire on cold winter nights. On cloudless nights we will pull out the telescope and watch for meteors in the night sky.
I think of Kirsten’s words, “If I make things and I love being at home, why can’t I be a homemaker?” And I realize I should have been proud of being a homemaker all along! So, if someone asks me what I do, I will recite a long list, which will include the words, I am a homemaker.
Interested in reading Kirsten Petroska Hussey’s essay, Who Is A Homemaker? Visit taprootmag.com to subscribe or purchase Issue 53:: AMEND where you can read Kirsten’s article.