Animus

I found the worst definition of home.

It’s not the worst because it’s wrong, it’s the worst because it sounds the worst. “The place in which one’s domestic affectations are centered.” is no one’s definition of home unless they think about it far too clinically, but if you have to do that, do you even have a home, or is it just an office for sleeping?

Something that I have learned about myself with all the moving that I have done, is that I like to set up functional spaces. This quirk has a lot to do with my career as a carpenter. When you’ve got to set up your means of production every morning for decades, you get pretty good at it. The site always has constraints such as slopes and holes, and the availability of power, but you do your best to set everything up for the best possible efficiency, flow, and safety. Sometimes the work is inside, but the tools need to remain outside. Sometimes it’s worth it, and so very satisfying, to buy a new tool that can be used inside in order to get the job done faster and better. Sometimes a job just takes a lot longer than you think it should, and sometimes you’ve just got to learn how to do things a different way. The point is that you endure the site, you change the site, or you adapt for the site, and change you.

The kitchen is always a good indicator of how well a house is working, and maybe, whether it is part of a home, or not. Whenever I moved into a new place, I often spent weeks setting up the kitchen. Oh, I’d unpack everything and get the kitchen working on day 1 or 2, but I’d rearrange it several times in order to have it in such a state that I could work in there almost automatically, because that’s the way that I like to work, with all the tools and supplies arranged with forethought, and in a clear space where I can put them all to use. If space is limited, I use one of my folding tables that I can tuck away after. If the fridge is at the wrong end of the counter, or it’s door opens the wrong way and I have to walk around the door to get food and get back to the workspace, I move the fridge, or move its hinges to the other side so it opens properly.

I find that it’s always a good idea to take the time to set things up carefully, and then be open to making adjustments as the work progresses. I’ve also learned that it’s not a good idea to have large expectations for your first day on the jobsite or in a new living space, because that day is for setting up, and that’s it.

Despite what some might claim, nobody works well in chaos, but what is and isn’t chaos looks different for everyone. I have a fairly low tolerance for clutter, so I like to put everything in boxes, and on shelves, and my system, refined through far too many moves, works pretty well, for moving. I have enough boxes, and enough shelves, I have a moving dolly, and a van, and road cases, and everything is modular or easily disassembled.

Everything. Everything including all that stuff that I haven’t unpacked in four years.

I have moments of doubt when I wonder what the hell I’m doing with all this stuff that I so seldom see or use. How important is it really, and why?

It’s a tough question for me to answer, and I find myself a little stuck with it right now. Maybe it’s the same deal with my stuff -I’m stuck with it- but, like most baggage it usually just as difficult to get rid of as it is to keep.

Some say that it’s not a good idea to be defined by your stuff, and that what you own says a lot about you; what you possess, in turn, possesses you. I see that a lot of people ignore their stuff, or forget entirely that they even own it, or don’t understand what it is that they have, or why. I’m not like that with my stuff.

I’m actually really proud of my stuff. It’s good stuff, and I worked very hard for a long time to be able to possess it. I don’t feel like it possesses me, but even if it did, I’d be OK with being possessed by sixteen boxes of books, three dozen boardgames, a legendary tube amp, 2 guitars, a lot of knives and art supplies, and a comprehensive, and highly effective-not to mention well used- set of tools. Everything I own has been requisitioned, curated, and maintained because it is valuable to me. To me, it is priceless.

If I sold all of it I could live for a couple of months on the proceeds, and that’s it. I’d rather give it, or throw it all away, or burn it as a pyre than receive money for it, though; at least then it would still have value to me.

It’s like everything else, it’s just a thing until it’s not. A book is just a book, a tool is just a tool, a word is just a word, until it gets used properly, until it has purpose, and meaning.

In my art classes I am learning about value. It’s easily defined in that context as the intensity of a hue, tone, or shade, and how it appears to the eyes. It’s easy to describe because it’s universally understood by anyone who can see as eighty percent of our sensory input is taken in through the eyes, in the light.

I suppose other attributions of value happen under the translucency of the skin, and in the dark and squishy places of the mind, in the incubator of the ego, and their meanings are thus much more challenging to convey.

I struggle with my ego like I struggle with mental continuity, but I’ve come to realize something in the last little while, and that is that I like my ego, I like my shadow, I like my stuff, and I like my struggles. I’m not a glutton for punishment; that’s not what this is about. It is still, and always, about value.

I like to make up little sayings from time to time, and one of my favorites is, “There are no bad experiences.” There are some addenda-lest this be taken out of context-such as, “There are only bad reactions to experiences.”, but this is my catch phrase, and I only add that if I really need to spell it out.

I’m having a really hard time finishing this piece without egregious meandering, which is what happens when I interrupt my writing time with breakfast, or a walk, or three days, and try get back to it later. I like it, though, and I refuse to throw it on the burn pile of broken streams of thought, so other measures are required...

Home, functional spaces, buying tools, folding tables, chaos, boxes, my stuff, identity, pride, value, squishy, ego, no bad experiences.

Ok.

I think value is the lesson learned by any means. I think that’s what I have been trying to get at here. That’s why there aren’t any bad experiences; whatever it is, it’s just a lesson trying to teach you that something which doesn’t make sense to you now, needs to. Tools and shelves and systems, and vans are pretty easy to comprehend and explain because they’re practical. They say something about me-that I am practical-but they do nothing to explain why I have needed them so often, nor why I would do something so impractical as to lug a thousand pounds of books that I rarely get to see, everywhere I go, so that’s what I am struggling to do here. I'm trying to explain something that I don't, even at this moment, understand. What drives me?

I do it because I love the guy that has all those books. I love the guy that hauls around all those board games that he never gets to play anymore, and built the gym that he sets up wherever he can because he wants to stay strong despite the pain it causes him. I love the man who knows he could put all those tools to use if he had to, if he were the man he used to be. But I’m not, and I don’t want to be, either. Not anymore.
Value is really hard to define, and I don’t know what my stuff says about me, but I do know this, I want to be the guy who is prepared for it to all come together someday, and build a future out of my history.

Here are some of my attempted wrap ups:

I don’t know how to define what a home is. I think it’s a place where it’s ok to unpack my stuff for long enough that it can collect dust, and I can relax and just stare at it for a while.

And

So, I’ve moved a lot, and I’m quite good at it, and I’m also good at setting up my space, no matter where it is, due to all the experience in doing so, but moving is also a symptom of reacting to circumstances that I felt I could not control, so, whether I was right or wrong, I have felt displaced, and chased, for a very long time. This has forced me to consider the true nature of a home, and in consideration of the travails I have had in securing a ‘where’, it seems more realistic to try to define the ‘what’