Home is where the heart is

I can’t overemphasise how attached I am to my home.  It’s a bit embarrassing, as it could be perceived as materialistic, but it’s more emotional than that.

 

I came across an article I had cut out of the Independent magazine, ‘where the heart is’, with contributions from Alain de Botton, Jeanette Winterson and Will Self.

 

Alain de Botton captures it for me.

‘We depend on our surroundings obliquely to embody the moods and ideas we respect and then to remind us of them’.

‘We arrange around us material forms which communicate to us what we need – but are at constant risk of forgetting we need – within’.

‘We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us’.

‘In this setting, we can come close to a state of mind marked by integrity and vitality.  We can feel inwardly liberated.  We can, in a profound sense, return home’.

 

Jeanette Winterson talks about ‘private magic’.

‘Possessions should be objects with which you have a connection’.

‘If you can tell me a story about every single thing in your house, then you have a home’.

‘Private magic is about investing ordinary objects with talismanic power’.

‘create a new space …..where you will not take your misery or fear’.

 

Will Self talked about the city of London.  it was a poignant article to read as he obviously wrote it before his recent marriage split.  London for him replaced his not always happy memories of his childhood.  Children helped to root him as they did me.

I am not saying I will leave my house in my coffin and it’s strange isn’t it, as I am perfectly happy to share with my lodgers.  I am just pretty much always glad to be home in my space; my haven; my creative project.