Skip to main content

Home, a lifeboat in uncertain times

What to do when the waves keep rising and daily life feels like a shipwreck? 

Last night, as I watched the news, I felt like I was drowning in a sea of fear.  Mail-bombs had been addressed to  two former presidents and those who had served as vice president, secretary of state, head of the Justice Department, and director of the CIA.  Today there were competing theories of who sent them and why.

When things get this bad, I feel helpless.  Paralyzed.  I don't want to venture out.  I want to pull the covers over my head and hunker down at home.

 We all need a safe haven to grapple with our fear and anxiety, to get used to the fact that we're living in uncertain times.  While there's much to be said for activism, signing petitions and supporting causes, sometimes we need our small domestic comforts. A self-styled retreat to restore our sanity. 

While our first impulse may be to  take to the streets and join the clamor of the crowd, we also need a quiet place to be still and collect ourselves.  

Home offers that and also helps us focus on the common thread of our humanity.  Everyone, no matter what their beliefs or affiliation, must make a life out of the same raw materials: a house, a room, a set of dishes. A broom, a mop, a pair of hands.   

For generations, we have bonded with our neighbors not through our slogans or political affiliations but the rhythms of our daily domesticity.   Stopping to weed the garden, clean the pots and pans, sweep the floor, or make the bed, matter.  These time-honored rituals play an important role, connecting us to one another, and to the flow of life.   

 Being a householder is an act of faith. In the long arc of history, towns have been founded, hardscrabble lives built, and small victories won with the flapping laundry, the freshly painted porch, the well-tended garden.  Yet, as we have learned through hard experience, there is no permanent Utopia.  Each era of expansion is followed by a series of violent uprootings.   Houses are washed away by fire and flood, whole regions hit by economic downturns, hard work and long-held dreams erased by sudden shifts of fortune. History shows us that that there no steady state. Only the world’s long slow slide toward entropy. 

The story of America can be summed up like this:  No matter how well we perform our duties, dirt and grime will soon build up and all our chores will have to be redone.   What counts, however, is our will to recommit. This is the Slow Housekeeping required for democracy.

So when you lose heart, remember this.  Approached with a sense of tenderness and devotion, every act of caregiving—every swipe of the duster, switch of the broom, and nail in the fencepost—is a revolutionary act of love and hope.  

 My advice: Do something homely tonight.  Have dinner by candlelight. Wash the dishes. Relax on the sofa. Spend time with loved ones.  Tomorrow: Find something to restore or rebuild.  




Illustrations by Ann Arnold.
-->

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Be mindful. Tend your portion of the world

--> What does slow housekeeping mean in a culture that feeds on instant gratification?    How does home provide a safe haven--in  a world that moves too fast and demands too much?  On social media, we record our public triumphs—the tantalizing meal, the perfect vacation, the pack of smiling friends—trying so hard to be special that we  cease to value ordinary life.   If you're bored with your persona, or with endless competition, spend a few hours cleaning up the living room.  My tip of the day: Household chores are the quickest antidote to personality overdrive and digital fatigue.     The psychiatrist C. G. Jung believed caring for the home was deeply therapeutic, a kind of slow medicine that gave people a rest from their ambition, connecting them to age-old patterns of restoration and renewal.   In the 1930s, he built a good portion of his country house by hand,  using tools designed in the Middle A...
5 comments
Read more

Losing home, losing everything

--> What happens when the world goes haywire? Last week I heard from a young man in Gaza who’d just been bombed out of his home.   Fadi collects money on Facebook and distributes food and clothing to his neighbors. He also runs a campaign to put solar panels on the roofs of nearby houses. Since the power plant was nearly destroyed, his community has three hours’ worth of electricity a day—not enough to wash and cook and read by.   Fadi has lost three friends in the last few months; he is trying to finish high school so he can apply to college and hopes to study medicine.   But right now he doesn’t have a place to read or do his homework.   From the videos he posts it looks like he is living on a vacant lot, no roof over his head, his only resting place, an old deck chair. As I corresponded with Fadi (and tried to find a refugee organization that might be of help), I realized how much we take for granted here in the US.   The running wa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there a cure for homesickness?

--> What happens when we lose touch with the people and places we love most?  When we have no access to our cherished memories?  During the big wave of immigration in the 19 th century, homesickness was pervasive. It was also soul-destroying.   In fact, it took such a toll on the newcomer's health it was regarded as a serious medical condition.   “Homesick” meant depressed, moody, melancholy. It was associated with lack of energy and engagement.   A general wasting of the body and the spirit.       Relocating meant severing all ties with one family and homeland, and during this great era of resettlement, America was awash in homesickness.   One of the hardest things for immigrants was the loss of family talismans.   Certain possessions quietly affirm who we are and what we value. They reflect our culture, bolster our sense of identity, anchor us in time and place.   Without them, we may grow disori...
Post a Comment
Read more