Home

Home.  I am almost finished moving my parents to a new place.  It has been an extremely emotional experience, going through memories.  My parents have been married for over 60 years and in their condo for over 20.  They acquired a lot of stuff that have so many memories attached.

The process led me to thinking about home.  I am very place based.  I remember a "getting to know you exercise" during orientation at Yale, where each of us, all outdoor oriented people, had to describe a favorite place.  I was stumped (no forestry pun intended).  Was it the rock on Hoods Canal where I sat for many summers, watching the waves?  Or the back woods at my family's farm?  The Nisqually where I romped during my childhood?  Or even the Housatonic River in Connecticut where in the fall, the reds, yellows, oranges of the oaks and maples shimmer their reflection on the water?  I was connected, deeply, to all those places and more.

But my home.  It is sanctuary, refuge for me.  I have lived in this home for almost 13 years, most of Murphy's life.  We both continue to explore and learn something new about our home every day (and then there are the days we don't especially like learning something new, like a leaking pipe or dry rot...).  

Our neighbors to the north just moved out, and are putting their house on the market.  Today, a fancy realtor in her HUGE Mercedes showed up with the "stagers," along with a U-Haul full of plastic wrapped furniture.  It is no longer a home.  When I moved here the couple that lived in the house tended to it every moment.  Lovely Rosemary, Lavender, Sage plants, fresh paint every summer, and the woman's stenciled walls.  After they moved, it became a place for a young man to party, then a place for the next buyers to simply reside.  Now it is being staged, shown as if no one has the imagination to see it as their home, their place.

Murphy says she could never live in a house that has been staged.  It has to be as authentic as she is.  I agree.

Murphy's day.