Being Home

Laura Basha

Have you ever noticed how when you clean out your closet, or straighten up your desk, or even wash your car, that you feel lighter, clearer, open to new ideas and ready to take action? Just like your desk is now occurring as an invitation to work on something new, and your car is a pleasurable invitation to drive, life experience occurs as freer and there is an invitation to become curious about what next inspires you.

If you want to know what you’re thinking, look at your life.

I completed painting the interior of our home this past holiday season. It took months to decide on which colors to put on which walls. I am an artist, so I figured it would be easy and fun! What I realized shortly into the project was that this was a whole different world of expression than creating paintings, and there was an inventory of house paints and colors about which I was basically ignorant. This was work! About six months after starting, the last wall was complete, and our two floors of Navaho White are now transformed into an enveloping realm of warmth and beauty.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the deep and satisfying experience of being home that this new many-hued house suddenly elicited. Having grown up in a family where abandonment was the culture, I had always felt that I didn’t have a home, and over the decades have experienced myself as always looking for home, feeling like I never belonged.

I came to realize that I didn’t have to keep looking for a place, because I was a place, and I learned to “bring home” with me.

But this new expression of warmth radiating out of the bold palette reminiscent of pumpkin and aubergine and green pear, is like stepping into one of my paintings, and suddenly the “inside bringing” of home is reflected in the outside structure of the house. Finally, the completion of a long search born of much self-reflection, emanating through this lovely house. Everyone who visits loves stepping into this environment and feels its enveloping cheer.

If you want to know what you’re thinking, look at your life.