I've always had a home. Moving around a lot growing up it became easy to make a house a home. Somewhere to call my own, a comforting refuge from the world.
I've heard the term "hearth and home" before, but never gave it much thought until recently. What differentiates hearth from home? Traditionally a hearth is the marble or brick slab of a fireplace that extends from the wall into the room. Over time the term evolved into a symbol for family life, a spirit of welcome and shelter.
Our home has been many things. A place to indoctrinate my brother in the glories of Liam Neeson cinema. A studio for my early attempts at professional artwork and design. A gallery of sorts capturing our marriage in photographs strewn across the wall. It serves as a base of operations, the logistical hub of our busy lives as we try to scrape out some time together each day. It's a test kitchen (mainly for B.) to discover new and exciting recipes that quickly become staples of our menu.
Ironically, our home has a fireplace. A dormant fireplace. We're just
renting and we have central heat installed, so despite the romanticism
of a warm crackling fire, we've left our hearth alone. It's just not
worth the hassle. We have been blessed to enjoy a wonderful home. But it doesn't always have hearth. We scramble around most of the day and get home late enough for a quick dinner, an hour or so of Netflix, shower, do B.'s hair and bed. We're private homebodies, a busy married couple usually with only enough time for each other on a good day.
But over this winter break a small ember burst into life in our dusty hearth. A very dear friend came to visit while he was back in town seeing family for the holiday. He walked up as I was halfway though shoveling snow from our driveway. There was no handshake or hug, just a smile and a nod as I ditched the shovel and we headed inside. We plopped down on the couch and it was as if we picked up right where we left off. Although I often wax verbose in writing, I don't talk much. He is one of the few people that can get me going in a conversation for hours. We didn't leave the couch for over six hours. After a much needed nap, B. joined us at our newly rediscovered hearth. She took up the conversation with no delay or hesitation. This friend of ours is a rare thing because he is just that: our friend. Most of the people B. and I know are colleagues from very different fields so when they come over one of us is always a little out of the loop. But this guy knows and likes us both.
He and I can talk politics, the ironically slow and decaying quality of Walking Dead, and the challenges of surviving as a 20-something in a fast-paced world full of tragedy and idiocy while he and B. can commiserate on having to deal with the average layman's stupidity and the nightmare of grad school as well as compare notes on the best books on international affairs.
In many ways his visit was one of the highlights of my holiday. It provided a glimpse into a future beyond undergraduate studies, a world of adulthood unburdened by professors and homework and the collegiate bureaucracy. A future where we will have weekends again, and friends and some semblance of a social life. But most of all he rekindled a sense of welcome and belonging to our tidy, tiny apartment.
He gave our home its hearth.
Happy New Year everyone,
S
