Homebody. Home studio.
At the end of 2023, I had the good fortune to be able to move within the Bow Valley. This was not without a period where I felt completely overwhelmed between the place purchased, the home that was not yet sold, and the downtown Canmore office I was renting for my practice. I confess, I don’t enjoy change, even when I’ve chosen it, even if it’s the best thing for me. I find it hard to switch gears and embrace the unknown. I grieve the loss of whatever has been. I’m fatigued by the decisions that are required when I’m not operating in my routine. Still, at a time when Canada is facing a housing crisis, and internationally more and more people are displaced due to war, genocide, and famine, my privilege was impossible to ignore. Fast forward a few months, and daily I find myself feeling grateful, not just for a roof and a safe space to lay my head at night, but for the deep peace that comes from feeling “at home”.
I’ve been reflecting on what it means to be at home. At home in a space or a community. At home inside of myself. At home in my body.
There are the physical aspects of course. Do I have the objects I need to function? What is accessible? Packing and unpacking highlights this very quickly. Confronts you with “your stuff”. The essentials, the “Where did I put those?”, and the well-intentioned but somewhat ambitious “I should save this”. Years of procrastination becoming evident, the ignored piles, tucked away in a hurried moment, literal baggage. There is a background hum of extra effort in my nervous system as I sift through all this stuff. How long can I tolerate feeling unsettled? Also, how much do I need? Are there other ways to find comfort through transition?
Home can also be a sense of place, more broadly speaking. This can extend to our outdoor spaces as well as the internal space they occupy in our hearts. Are the mountains familiar or foreboding? Are the plains boring or beautiful? Is the ocean soothing or too vast to feel at ease in? A lot of this aspect of hominess has to do with what is familiar. For me, a prairie sunset will always make me breathe a little deeper with sweet nostalgia. Likewise, there is always a sense of relief when emerging from Kananaskis and turning west to the Bow Valley, instead of east towards Calgary. Ask a newcomer what they miss most from home, and the answers specific to cultural traditions or regional meals will come pouring out. Sometimes these things are so familiar that we can’t even see them until we are removed from them.
There are also the less tangible but equally important aspects of what makes a home homey. I’m talking about the connections nurtured, the memories planted as we move through time, and the soothing comfort of spaces shared with cherished others. The quiet corner where you rocked your new nephew to sleep for the first time. The room where you were nurtured back to health after a surprise downturn. The kitchen where you celebrated good news with loved ones and accidentally shot very ripe kombucha across the living room. The dings and dents from a life well lived. We can easily take for granted the quiet comfort of beautiful relationships that have taken root in our home space.
For highly sensitive people, our environment is extra important. Home can be a place of reprieve from an over-stimulating world. Our senses respond constantly and automatically to environmental information: colour, noise, space, smells, textures, lighting…some feel better in our body (and in our home) than others. When we can shape our home environment, it can also be a place for restoration, where the needs of our nervous system are honoured and attended to. This has been top of mind while setting up my new home studio and I’ve found myself exploring questions that I haven’t before and looking at my surroundings in a new way. How do I make my studio a refuge for weary hearts? A place to inspire creative instincts and cultivate belonging? A container for heavy burdens? A nest for nurturing growth and eventually flight? There is a mysteriousness to what we are drawn to or repelled by, and yet we all have preferences, even if we can’t always articulate the why of our preferences.
This physical transition has had me tapping into my body’s rhythm more. Old habits crept up, urging me to hurry up, to “be productive”, to compare my choices to others or my own past decisions. Yet since moving I’ve been noticing a gentle pull to slow down, and as the poet Mary Oliver writes, “Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves”. And so amidst the busy demands of life, I’ve been holding space to nap. Listening to birdsong. Following the morning light around the house. Poking around the dirt as the perennials that surround our property emerge from their winter slumber. I think this is my nervous system’s way of bringing me back home to myself, a recalibration into a pace that better matches this new season of my life. I’m witnessing in real-time what a homebody I am. At times this may look like isolation to the outside world, but inside it is a rediscovery of the sweetness of feeling at home in solitude and stillness.
If you’d like to explore how your creativity can be another way to come home to yourself, please reach out by email to arrange a time to connect. I am happy to be offering in-person services from my new home studio here in the Bow Valley.
