It has always and only ever been about the house for me. This house. All the previous houses. The house I grew up in. I have spent the majority of my lifetime writing about home. My bookshelves are full of books about home. My favorite novels include The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, and favorite memoirs include House Lessons by Erica Bauermeister. They talked to their house. I talk to my house.

Most of the most memorable movie scenes for me center around the house. P.L Travers returns to her London townhouse after exhaustive negotiations with Walt Disney, comes in and says, “Hello, House…” She sold Mary Poppins for one reason and one reason only: she didn’t want to lose her house.

At this moment I am completely snowed in. To leave my house I would have to push through heavy waist deep snow drifts and climb over a mountain of snow and ice, well over my head, down to the road. Then I would have to have someone else pick me up. My car is buried at the top of that hill. I’m not going anywhere. Thank goodness the power is back on and the freezer is full.

Once the storm abated – meaning the gale-force winds died down to 45 mph and the constant snow became lake effect rather than system, my neighbors began contacting me. They don’t live here; these are vacation homes now. Ice and heavy wet snow had obscured their views from outdoor security cameras. They didn’t know what things looked like here. How many trees were down? I sent what photos I could take from inside my house. My doors won’t open.

Not only have I never owned a second home, I have never wanted to. In fact I can’t imagine it. I read recently that the wealthiest Americans own a home in each of the 50 states. They own the company that manages those homes. They own the planes that might fly them to those homes. I’m sure there is a reason for this, likely a tax reason.

Decades ago my brother-in-law Bob started the first taxi cab company in Traverse City. My former husband, son, and I drove taxi from time to time as needed. We picked up people from private jets and delivered their children to private schools and to hidden estates in outlying properties all over this area, stopping several times to let their assistants buy supplies. I know all the disguises famous people use to be incognito. Even as a kid, in private school in the Detroit suburbs, I had friends with family “up north” at the private art school Interlochen. I knew their famous parents. Fame never appealed to me, in fact it seems like a terrible life sentence. I can only have compassion for them despite their wealth. As far as I’m concerned, it wouldn’t begin to serve as adequate compensation for needing a disguise in public. Let alone constant protection.

Only now I am realizing that there is some deeper awareness here for me to glean. To worry how your “other house” has fared a storm…it boggles my mind. I wish you could see what I see at this very moment. I’m sitting at the desk in my bedroom writing this. I face a window which has a hawthorn tree outside it, planted decades ago a little too close to the house. Right now the tree is full of robins. Full. Two dozen? I’m talking to them. They are all sitting on this side of the tree, amongst the berry-laden branches, facing me. I am their student. One just flew to the window, fluttering it’s wings an inch from the glass. It was saying, “We see you. Do you see us?” How beautiful. My heart opens.

On the edge of the desk next to the window are three small houseplants. An asparagus fern, which seems to especially enjoy the spot above the radiator, a spotted dieffenbachia and an African violet. They delight me. No houseplants in an extra house, unless you employ a caretaker. No soul. No infusion of day-to-day, of frustration and grief and resolution. No beloveds bones buried in the yard. You might experience spring in a second house, but not every day of it. No two days are the same here.

My soul is so attached. I’m attached to my house and to every little thing inside and out. I’m attached to my place, to the land, to the sky here, to the smells and the sounds, to the light and the shadows, to being who I am here, now. So very attached. Some may say this is unhealthy. Talk amongst yourselves. I don’t care.

Could I leave? Of course; I imagine I will, perhaps even soon. I’ve moved more times than average, all my life. But I take my life with me to each new house and I make a new life, a new place. I’m embedded. Somehow, it’s always about the house. It’s another relationship to me, to be nurtured and treasured.

I’m not sure what that means…but I am fascinated with this, and always willing to explore it. To explore my attachments. I imagine many – perhaps most – people have other priorities – career, passions, climate preferences – that dictate where they live. My priority is the house. Proximity to the people and things I love, sure – but I will forgive a lot of preferences for the right house. It makes all the difference.

It seems as though no one I’ve lived with gets this. My Mother did, and I’m sure that is where my attachment comes from. And her Mother. They made beautiful homes. But no one since has had any conscious awareness of the true value of a home. Home: as shelter, as sanctuary, as healer, as family member. Alive. Functioning. Home.

Oh, I don’t doubt that they get it subconsciously. But you can’t convince anyone of the importance of something subconscious. It becomes a power struggle. I have lived most of my adult life in a power struggle, attempting to prove my worth as well as why I cared about our home. I’ve stayed far too long where I was disrespected precisely because I didn’t want to leave my beautiful home. I’m done with that now. I’m done trying to convince anyone of anything. As the meme says, “Explaining myself is too much work. Just judge me.”