Confessions of a Nest Builder

I spent the last two days desperately needing an oxygen mask. I’m on a staycation at Myrtle Avenue for part of this week, and I have been anxious to bring some order to a few areas of our house that haven’t seen it in the last couple of years. One laundry room, one utility room, one walk-in closet and about a dozen boxes and trash bags later, I have the contented self-satisfaction of creating a place for things that have been left wanting and letting go of the unnecessary. I’ve waded through dusty boxes, papers, piles of oh-I-forgot-we-had-that and other allergy inducing stacks of what have you. I’ve sweated, washed, climbed up and down ladders, vacuumed, swept and lugged around giant garbage bags. It’s been a great two days! The only thing that would have made it better is if I had been able to do all that while also hugging my little ones. Alas, daycare was the better option so that the piles and I could have a little alone time to work through our differences.

I’m one of those domestic engineers who is in perpetual nesting mode. There is almost no feeling I relish more than the peace of enjoying my own home when everything is in order. I don’t know how it is for the rest of the human race. I only know that for me, an ordered environment leads to an ordered and relaxed mind. It leads to refreshment and fresh thinking. So, despite the inevitable sweat and sneezing, I can find simple pleasure in creating a place for everything–a beautiful and colorful, yet quirky place–but a specific place nonetheless.

I know what you’re thinking, and I’m perfectly willing to own my obsessive tendencies. It’s not that I have an incessant need to constantly tidy up. The 2 or 3 years it took to create the piles I’ve been ordering rules that out. But, I do “need” a positive environment. I have a coping threshold for how much clutter I’m able to live with while maintaining my good humor and the ability to think rationally. It’s just a fact I’ve come to recognize. Also, I have clear criteria for what constitutes a home rather than simply a house. Part of that criteria includes being surrounded by the pattern and texture of beauty (at least to my eye) and the layered trappings of memory.  Feathering my nest puts me in the perpetual process of denoting memories, articulating preferences, stimulating peace, contentment and refreshment through the surroundings that have most come to signify our “place.” In her book, Creating a Beautiful Home, designer Alexandra Stoddard said:

“It is human to want to give physical expression to that which we hold sacred, and to define ourselves–through light, color and texture–by the spaces we inhabit… Home gently and subtly forces you to face the reality of your unique qualities and to mold, contour, adapt, build and change the things that don’t support this truth.”

Making a home out of a house is a gratifying and worthwhile pursuit. After having children, the pursuit has been made even more poignant with the thought that this specific place, which for so much of their early lives is the very center of their world, is the place that will build their assumptions about life and about home for future generations–whether what to emulate or what to avoid. Like it or not, THINGS, the trappings of life and activities and relationships, are often the tangible expression of those abstract, unspoken values and emotions we hold “sacred.”

By “things,” I don’t necessarily mean the latest and greatest from the catalogs, HGTV and Toys R Us. No, those things can sometimes make an impression, but regardless of trends or popularity, it is so often what we do with “things” that infuse them with their power of place. It is the wonder and excitement of my children seeing a Mickey Mouse gumball machine, purchased when I was a child and unearthed from the boxes of personal ephemera. It is the anticipation of filling it with M&Ms for ready snacks where the fun lies in scooping them from the slot. It’s the lamp and hand-me-down lampshade set on a chest to light a darkened corner in the reclaimed entry space. It is realizing I just created Buddy the Cat’s new favorite napping spot isolated from the curious hands and squeals of toddlers. It is an old Valentine I made for Quiver found in a box and hung in a newly cleaned and appointed office bathroom. It is blessing him with a convenient way to clean up during a hot August day of landscaping work. It is speaking an unexpected reminder of all we hold dear.

In my nest building, another of Alexandra Stoddard’s descriptions equally motivates and encourages me to declutter each moment and take good care of it:

“For me, home is the coming together of my past memories and experiences, of my love for my children, husband and friends; my love of nature and beauty; my love of life and belief in continuity; my optimism tangibly expressed in life-enhancing ways–room by room–and of the tender appreciation that no matter how much of myself I put into this home, I, like everyone on earth, am a temporary guest.”

A temporary guest.