Home

I returned home from celebrating the holidays on the east coast to find this delightful snowman welcoming me back to my little cabin. He puts a smile on my face each night when I return and see him standing stoically in the headlights. I read the sign and tumble the word home over in my mind.

I go back to a challenging time in my past when my husband and I first separated. I was in a little two room apartment, going back to college after 25 years. A sleeping bag served as the sofa and my modest groceries were stacked in cardboard boxes. My mother had helped me buy a double bed that barely fit in the room. My girls were teenagers and I was with them on weekends. One day my youngest said something that I will never forget, “Mom, you could put a stump in a hayfield and it would feel like home, because you are there.” Home is a place where you feel loved and comforted. It doesn’t matter how grand or how Spartan. Home is where you can be yourself and find peace. Home is your sanctuary.

I have been searching for a house to purchase in Montana for the past 4 years. I am looking for a place to set down roots and make a home. Then I wonder what I am truly looking for? To each of us a house may represent different things. I see it as a place for family, entertaining friends, holidays. It is a reflection of status, worthiness and security.

Is any of this true? In this recession, thousands of people have found that their house is an albatross around the neck, which is weighing them down and tying them to a place. Instead of security, it is creating financial doom. It is no longer a safe investment to be taken for granted. Do people really think less of me because I rent? Do I imagine that my siblings, my children and their families are really going to travel to Montana for the holidays?

I look around my cabin as I write on another cloudy, Sunday morning. The snow is gently falling and I see my snowman smiling at me from across the drive. The cats and dog are curled up near the wood stove. My Christmas tree is on her last day. The scent of pumpkin spice candles burning and coffee brewing, fill the air. My beloved paintings, photographs and cookbooks surround me.

I cannot say that I felt more at home at my mother’s or my sister’s. There is no family homestead to congregate. I am at home in my heart with my family because they love me. It is not the house or the decorations. I always wanted to provide a place to return for my daughters, a place filled with memories and love. This has not occurred. Not in the way I had planned. We come together and make wherever we meet, home.

I am at peace here and find comfort in these cabin walls. I will be here as long as it serves me on my path. My freedom is that I can move to another place in 30 days. This is my home for now. Home is a place I will take with me; I will create and share. My home is not in the east, in a house, it truly is wherever I go.