Friday 3 May 2019

Home should spark joy

I am subscribed to a double-handful of newsletters. Most I tend to ignore until I'm ready to read them (that's usually a few days up to a few weeks).

But one arrived today, and for some reason, I was thrilled.

It was the KonMari newsletter. I was genuinely happy to receive it. Today's topic: Greeting your home. It contained a lovely video of Marie Kondo greeting a home before getting to work.

Following up somewhat from my last post, I thought about my home.

Actually, I'd been thinking much about  home lately, since my parents had come to visit, bringing pictures and news of the place I was born. I also listened to the stories of others in my family, of former neighbours, old school friends and more. Not everyone had a happy home, a place to which they could retreat from the world and find comfort and rest.  (My daughters later remarked on the change they noticed when their grandparents had come into our home, and when they had left. I think one of the phrases they used was, "It's so quiet now." Shame, for there were more stories I wanted to hear.)

For a lot of people, home isn't a quiet place, or a safe space. It's not somewhere they want to be.

My daughter had some trouble with this concept. We are often out at stupid o'clock in the morning as she has a before-school extracurricular class. She'd see fellow students on their way to school a good two hours before the school starts. "Why are they leaving so early?"  Escaping home as soon as one could wasn't something that had crossed her radar.

I'm glad she does not feel that way about our home. I've worked hard to make my home feel like a home should. It feels warm at my home. It feels welcoming. It feels safe.

And that's the way it should be.

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