The English Maximalista

As some of you may have noticed, new English Maximalista bloggage has been rather lacking, these past few weeks. Some of you may have also noticed — evidenced from the contents of My Daily ‘Fits posts — that I have been away on business an awful lot, this month. 

And by an awful lot, I mean THREE TIMES. Which might not seem like much to some people, but is an awful lot for me. Usually it is Mr Maximalista who leaves yours truly to hold down the fort. (With the help of my faithful, vicious guard dog, Sadie, of course.)

But this time, the tables were turned. And while my recent jaunts were admittedly extremely fruitful — even enjoyable! — I feel an incredibly enormous relief to be home again.

It’s not a great secret that I am a homebody. As much as I love to pop out for a few hours, my favourite place to be is home. Even though it’s been pouring rain for two full days since I got home, and the rainclouds are blocking our mountain views, I honestly could not be more content.

Right now, as I write these words, I’m contentedly listening to the raindrops hitting the ground, frogs are croaking in the creek, and water is tapping down the gutters. We have some of our windows open, so I’m also getting the full effects of petrichor hitting my olfactory senses. It’s moments like this when I truly feel like I’m British!

*****

With all of the business travel this month, it has felt like as soon as I got home and unpacked, I was unable to fully relax because in the back of my mind I knew I had to pack up again for another week away.

Now that I am truly home again — well, until the next set of conferences or whatever the future holds for me, in that regard — I got to thinking about HOME. What is it that makes home so important to me?

Yes, it is the place where I eat and sleep, and do the other basic things all of us do to survive. My house is the repository for our belongings: my beloved books (and my shoes!), not to mention the multitude of family photos, furnishings, and knickknacks that we have accumulated over the course of our life.

But beyond all of that, fundamentally my home is where I feel safe. I can rest with ease. I feel secure.

I remembered that when we were house-hunting, my Top Three Stipulations were:

• The neighbourhood had to be safe. My home is my sanctuary and as such, it was of tantamount importance that I feel safe when I’m there 
• Plenty of “book walls”, ie room for floor-to-ceiling bookshelves
• A non-scary basement. I would never go alone into the basements at my last couple of houses, because they were almost windowless, thus felt dark and scary

Of course, we had other lists, with preferences of secondary [such as an ample walk-in closet for myself, or a large garage for Mr M] and tertiary importance [for instance, a house with a nice kitchen or fenced-in garden was preferred, although not a deal-breaker, since we could have those installed ourselves]. But I digress.

The thing I notice now about my Top Three Stipulations is this: that 2/3 of the list involved the importance of personal safety. Everything else after that was just icing on the cake.

It breaks my heart to think about the people around the world, or children within our community, who do NOT feel safe at home. Whether it’s because they live in a war zone, or because they were born into abject poverty, or because their home environment is simply not a safe place from abuse or hunger.

How lucky I am to have found my own little oasis. How deeply grateful I am to live in such safety and comfort.

If I could be granted one wish, it would be that everybody could be so blessed.

Lots of love,

M xo