Turning a house into a home

We purchased our house from the original inhabitants who grew up in it, and on moving in we found a gift and a note: “Bread so you may never know hunger, salt so your lives will have flavor, and wine to bring you joy and prosperity. Good luck, this is a great old house. It was full of love and laughs.” It was a sweet gesture that instantly turned our new ‘house’ into a ‘home’.

We are fortunate; we had the resources to buy a house and the wherewithal to turn it into a space reflective of that gift. Home is not necessarily an easy accomplishment, and as a concept, it is a complicated place.

Home can represent an achieved goal or a pipedream or a romanticized nostalgia.

If we invest in a home long enough, we make an impression there and feel bound by connection, but sometimes home is an in-between place we pass through inconsequentially without really leaving a mark.

There are homes that house our firsts. No matter how brief our stay, these places are distinct in our memory: the rooms of our earliest childhood, where we were when first on our own, where we lived when first in love.

There are generational homes, where elders carefully navigate spaces they sped through in youth; where grandparents and greats resonate even after they are gone.

There are spaces where home is shared with the intimacy of strangers on the other side of the wall, and then there are wilder addresses where acres outnumber square footage and trees are counted amongst one’s friends.

For those with privilege, home is often a sanctuary.

For some, shelter must be made from canvas, or cardboard, or sometimes there’s only sidewalks and open sky. Once considered homeless, the terminology has shifted to ‘unsheltered’ or ‘houseless’ because home is so much more than just a physical space.

There are homes that are lost. Three years ago today we were just beginning to grapple with the sudden destruction of our ridge communities. Thousands of displaced people were on couches and in trailers and tents; the sky was black and choking with the ghosts of all that used to be. Many were waiting for news of their properties, those who knew they had lost everything were still in the shock that precedes grief, those discovering their places still standing were managing the juxtaposition of relief and guilt.

People living here have experienced wide-spread traumatic loss before. The Maidu tribes whose forebears called this place home for thousands of years, before Bidwell and Sutter and California statehood, know it well. In the blink of a generation their ancestors lost their home and a great deal more because of government sanctioned atrocities committed in the name of greed and racism.

Our corner of the world has seen the ugly side of humanity, and we are daily living with the consequences of social and environmental degradation. It’s time we reckoned fairly with our past and present so we can build a healthy future. The truth is that each of us needs a place to be and belong. As our community moves forward I hope we can remember that common connection- and restructure from the better part of our human nature- with kindness, honesty, generosity, and compassion. It’s what this region needs and deserves. And wherever you are reading this from, if it is in a home you’ve known for years or a temporary space, a place under construction, a relocation, or a park bench under a November sky, I wish you luck. I hope you are fed, I hope you are sustained, and I hope that you know love and joy today.