Home

It's been several weeks since I had the time, the space, the motivation to write a blog. There has been so much going on in my life. We bought a cute house that suits us very well and left a home we'd spent the last nine years in. It's been an interesting time, to say the very least.

I've learned a lot about myself through this process. I am the kind of person who needs a place to call home. I moved around quite a bit as a kid. By the time I was in 4th grade I was on my 4th elementary school in three different states. This last house was the longest I'd lived anywhere in my entire thirty something years.


To be honest, I didn't think I was ever going to be able to leave it. I didn't think I wanted to leave it.

But it was time and it was right so we packed up our life of nine years and moved the eight blocks over to our new house. And within 24 hours we were unpacked and I was home.

And it surprised me how quickly this new house felt exactly like home.

So I've been thinking and remembering.

I am adaptable. While I may not always welcome change, it's usually not that hard for me. I make a home wherever I am. As long as I have the people who love me, the walls don't matter. The cliche is true. Home is where the heart is.

And now that I'm sleeping through the night, now that I have a porch with a comfortable space to write and a cup of coffee, I'm ready to look forward. I've got writing to do, and lots of it.

I've run out of excuses and the odds are in my favor.

I have time. I have vacation coming up over the next two months that will give me the extra time and space to do what gives me the greatest joy.

You see, there is a part of my home that is simply me. And sometimes it's me with my fingers tapping against the keys, eyes on the screen, imagination running wild. 

Home Sweet Home

Writing home

For more than a year I have been searching for a new place to write near home. One within walking distance. A place with good light and nice people. It had to have comfortable chairs and enough tables that I didn't have to worry about fighting for a place. The coffee/espresso had to be of a certain quality. And there had to be options for real food, not simply a pastry. It had to be clean. This proved to be a bigger challenge than I ever anticipated in a town like Portland and a neighborhood like mine.

Around a month ago a new place opened up across the street from Starbucks. This would the 4th coffee place to open up within the distance of a single city block. (I had been able to find faults in the other three). It is, rather fittingly called the fourth estate coffeehouse. From the first time I walked through their door, I felt like this could be the place for me, the place where I could sit and write and think while drinking (and occasionally eating) delicious things. There is bright light from windows. There aren't any fluorescent lights. In fact, there is a skylight above my table that balances the light just right.
In short, I think I'm falling in love.

I am able to write at home and I have a great space in which to do that. But writing is so often a solitary pursuit and so it's nice to get out into the world where unpredictable things happen, where you can watch two people navigate the waters of a first date, where you can watch the newspaper reading habits of someone else. You can observe the gentleman who always holds the door open for others. You can wonder what that other laptop people are working on. Is it Facebook or a brilliant novel?

Over the past week, I have been slowly reclaiming my life from the grips of the retail holiday season. I have slept, I have read, I have cooked and eaten good food. I have watched movies and gone for long walks. And now, I dive back into writing to see what is worth pursuing from November.

I didn't talk a lot about what I did for NaNoWriMo, but I will tell you that if I can do it right, it's going to be a tough and beautiful story. A story of friendship and a story of family...in all the forms it takes. For the first time in my life, I wrote a scene that made me cry as I wrote it. I've heard other writers talk about this, but I'd never before experienced it. It was, at once, both awesome and terrifying.

I'll confess I am a little nervous to see what I wrote, but I finally feel ready. I feel the time is now.

My fourth estate Stumptown latte.

Homes Away From Home

Roughly a year ago, my favorite of all the neighborhood coffee establishments (of which there are several...this is Portland after all) went out of business. I was devastated. They made incredible espresso drinks and wonderful food. It was the best place to sit and write and I loved going there when I needed to get out of the house.

While I can write at home (most of my novels have been written there), sometimes it's good to get out of your most familiar surroundings to shake things up. If I'm experiencing what is most commonly known as Writer's Block, I find it helpful to go for a walk, get some exercise, or just change venues. It's nice to have a place close to home so you don't spend too much time traveling back and forth. My cafe was all that and more. A great table to work at with plenty of windows to watch the people on the street passing by and handy outlets to recharge.

Since then, I've been feeling homeless. There are plenty of great places within 1-4 miles of my home, but no single place that I've felt like settling. It's been a difficult quest.

Today I'm working from "home" on employee reviews. I tried to work in the store yesterday, but in the two hours I set aside I got virtually nothing done due to all the interruptions...the phone calls, the visitors, the questions. I decided I could be much more productive anywhere else and so I've taken advantage of the freedom to work elsewhere. In the same period of time I've managed to accomplish 4 times the amount of work.

I left the house with no clear direction of where I was going to end up, just that I wanted to try something different. There is one neighborhood place I hadn't tried yet, mainly because they close up at 2pm and that's not always the most convenient. I decided to give them a try.

I can't decide if this is home or not. The coffee is Stumptown, one of my absolute favorites, and the food was good, though rather on the pricey side of the spectrum. The table is wobbly, but the staff is pleasant. The ceilings are high and the outlets are plentiful. I don't dislike it, but at the same time, it hasn't been head over heels.

Which makes me think about my husband, the truest of all my homes. I knew my husband for years before I ever dreamed that we would get married. Some loves take longer than others.

Maybe I just need to give it some time.