How did you choose your home? - #155
And how long will you stay?
Shangrilogs is a weekly Sunday essay about slow mountain living — exploring our own natures and big nature. Upgrade to get the Wednesday edition, access to the archive, and the glow that comes from supporting the arts.
This morning, on my way to the kitchen, I walked into a spider. I’m not sure what her plan was, just dangling mid room from the ceiling, but it obviously wouldn’t do. You can’t be dangling at mouth height in a walking path. You can, however, live here. You can spin elaborate webs across various beams and plants, corners and book stacks, but you can’t gently caress my cheek before I’ve turned on the kettle.
So I grabbed a jar, swooped her up, and transported her to the aloe plant. I’m delighted she’s chosen this cabin as her bug collecting paradise, but let’s be civil.
When we lived in Topanga Canyon, we had even more spiders. Orb weavers constructed palaces across our entryway as if one day they might actually catch us. Brown recluses nestled in the ever present oak leaves that built up by our electrical panel. Wolf spiders prowled the house at will, competing for who got to live in the coveted hole beneath the dog’s bowl. They chose our airy house as we did: for the wood, for the indoor/outdoor appeal, and I’m certain for its charm.
We even reached a detente with the ants. Instead of pulverizing them like video game villains that simply keep coming, we secured our food and watched as they made their annual pilgrimage to the sink. They were thirsty, and technically, they (the royal they) were here first. They had chosen this spot. We were simply living on top of it. No reason we couldn’t share resources. They marched in their holy line to The Faucet, had their sip, and were on their way.
The ants, the spiders, the rats and bats, they’ve all chosen our homes as we have. We have a knack for choosing holey places with holy spaces. Places with character and characters. That is what we look for when looking for home.
It’s an interesting business, choosing a home. We are constrained not only by jobs and budgets, but by floorplans and families, by access to care and food and transportation, by birth and by the deaths that precede us. But even when our choices are limited, we have a way of making things work. We are a dandelion in the concrete, and we’ll root where we want.
When I was little, during the holidays, my parents would drive us around to look at the holiday lights. I would beg, turn here! Turn here!, on any street I could see a twinkle on. I loved seeing the lights, but more than that, I loved seeing the houses. I loved imagining the lives of the people who lived there and why they lived there.
I am still saying turn here, turn here every time we’re in the car. What’s down this road? What’s up there? Where does this go? That person lives on a cliff! That person has a swing made out of a dining chair! That person has a brick yurt! On vacation we always rent a car, driving around towns and neighborhoods, just to look, to see, to imagine.
For years, I loved moving. I lived in a hotel room on Virgin Gorda, I lived on a sailboat harbored off Tortola, I lived in a townhouse in DC, a walk-up in New York, a mother-in-law suite in Boulder, and a hunting shack in Topanga. I love the places we live. I’ve watched hundreds of hours of home and garden shows. I subscribe to Never Too Small, Architectural Digest, HGTV Home, World of Interiors, and Interior Design. I check Domino and Apartment Therapy and too many Subreddits. I listen to The Great Indoors and How to Decorate. I’ve watched an ungodly amount of YouTube dedicated to the way (and where) we live.
And have I had enough?
No.
No, I have not.
Every once in a while, I write about home-related things: renovations, design ideas, organizational tips, our journey to making this home ours, etc. But I never folded my love of “home” very completely or very overtly into this newsletter. Until now.
Every time someone subscribes to this newsletter, they get a “Welcome” email. Many of you may have noticed a question I ask in that email:
I know this is unconventional, but I’d love if you replied to this email and told me a little about you. Where ya from? What brought you to Shangrilogs? I’m a person, you’re hopefully a person — let’s be friends.
And people have told me about themselves. They’ve told me winding tales explaining why they are where they are, where they’d like to be, and all the places they’ve been in between. I love these emails. I love putting a name to a place to a raison d’être.
When I was toying with the future of this newsletter, I kept coming back to those emails. I kept imagining all their lives, all the ships in the night navigating to homes not yet made and back again. If I was fascinated by the course of a stranger’s plotted life, maybe you would be too.
And so: I’m launching a new series called Chosen Places, all about where we live and why.
You’ll see the first edition in your inbox this Tuesday.
Every edition will answer the same questions:
Where have you lived so far?
How did you end up where you currently are? What drew you to this place initially?
What’s a small, everyday joy that comes from being there?
In what moments does this place really feel like home?
Has this place changed how you see yourself or affected your priorities in life? Do you feel different—mentally, emotionally, physically—since moving there?
How long do you see yourself staying in this place?
What is community like there and how do you see yourself as part of it?
And of course, I couldn’t ask those questions without answering them myself:
Not everyone would be charmed by living in a home that is also home to so many critters. But that’s what makes it mine. And I can’t wait to see what makes it yours.
More like this:
In the slog of your craft and need some company? Tune in to hear Krisserin Canary and I work through our latest projects on Pen Pals. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.
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Oh I love this. I worked in marketing for interior design for years so also have a special place in my heart for a good home story. I never open the welcome e-mails when I subscribe (I rarely open any e-mails, honestly) so missed your question. If I'd seen it, my answer would have been as follows: I'm from Nottingham in England, which is famous for Robin Hood. I now live in the north of England by way of London, and although it's colder here I quite like it. I ended up here because I married a northern man, and you can't keep a northern soul in the south (the north and south have very different vibes.) We live in a small town which I sometimes find hard after London life, but we chose it because it's an amazing place to raise children, and we think they'll have a great childhood here. It feels like home now but I don't know if it's forever - we think it might be, as we've made lots of great friends, but never say never.
I came across Shangrilogs thanks to a note you did about your postpartum belly button, which really made me laugh, because my belly button is basically MIA now I've had three kids. I was drawn to your space from the moment I read your tag line, and find your way of life both fascinating and desirable. To wake up to such a view each day just feels enchanting to me, and I love reading about your life in the middle of nowhere. You seem like a fun yet thoughtful soul, and our parenting styles seem quite aligned, and I like you. Hi xo
Looking forward to Chosen Places. Everytime I've moved since 1979, I've thought it would be the last time. Something always changes. I moved to my present house 2 years ago. We were planning to downsize but nothing small met our needs, so we ended up in a 3 floor house - which I had thought we were to old to manage. Turns out, one way of keeping fit is climbing the stairs everyday! When we last moved, people couldn't understand why we would leave that community, move to a city where we had few contacts, start again. But starting again, while scary and uncomfortable, is also deeply reviving and creative, the opposite to being stultified. We've learned new things, met new people, joined a new book group and a Rummikub group, walked new places. I envy people who are so deeply rooted in a place that they never feel the need to change, but that's not me.