looking for my home

they say home is where the heart is. and a place that my heart belongs to is something i am yet to find. having lived away from my hometown for many years now, and adopting another country as my homestay, i sometimes feel that i dont know where my allegiances lie. coming to the place of my birth has its own charm – listening to the local chatter, exploring the huge new stores and little hole-in-the-wall shops, seeing folks who have known me since my birth. it has a touch of nostalgia, a feeling of slipping into a world that is far removed from the daily routines of a life i have left behind for a short period. but going back to the place in which i live is something i look forward to as well – the familiar skylines, the feeling of stepping back into my appartment, meeting up with a close friend and getting updated with week-old news. it is a place in which i have freedom beyond social restrictions, where i have friends with whom there is no need to take up where we left off, where life flows in a smooth rythm.

so where does my home truly lie? which one claims my loyalty and which one my love? but then again, shouldn’t both be addressed to one? and if so, which one would that be? and this is where life sometimes has a way a making of shifting the angle of the lens through which we view life. for while the sights may have been crystal clear upto a point, they may sometimes appear blurred, forcing us to take a closer look – and making us realise that deeper shifts have taken place with us.

the stresses of being a modern-day domestic goddess

not too long ago, i was pondering the fact that women have somehow become accustomed to the idea that we have to attain perfection – by juggling a busy corporate job and a happy family, maintaining a beautiful home and cooking full meals, and of course, being impeccably dressed and throwing dinner parties that are perfectly planned to a tee. ladies who manage to achieve all this more than deserve the title of being the ‘domestic goddess’. but they do set the bar very high for the rest of their kind.

an article in The Guardian, I scent an almighty stink about nothing, talks about a very similar issue, albeit picking up the thread on the issue of scented candles. i saw it first when a friend posted it on FB, with my attention being drawn to the paragraph she had highlighted in specific:

“I am oppressed by the idea of ‘lovely domestic touches’. We busy modern people should be proud of ourselves if we empty the bins, vacuum occasionally and change the bedsheets once in a while. We should not feel guilty about failing to array scented candles, dry-clean the curtains and put lemons in the dishwasher “to freshen it”. To those who advise that cutlery should be hand-dried, pants ironed and thighs massaged daily with essential oil, I say: I will do all of those things, the very second my doctor tells me I have 967 years to live.

Many of us struggle to maintain a level of basic tidiness. I move two pairs of shoes into the wardrobe and four more appear under the sofa. I have a mound of unanswered post, unread magazines, unpaid bills and scribbled reminder notes so delayed that the bottom layer is mulching into compost. There is no room for scented candles because the surfaces are already piled with keys, stamps, batteries, scissors, packs of cards and mysterious little bits of metal that I can’t throw away in case they have fallen off something important.”

i have to agree with her. our jobs have become much more demanding. long hours mean that we are near half-dead by the time we get to the lift. in the little time we manage to eke out for ourselves, we run around paying our bills and squeeze in dinners with friends. and then we run home and crash onto our beds. on weekends, we sleep in late, and then realise that half the day is already gone when we wake up. and just how much can you do in the remaining time – especially when your weekend plans revolved around bumming on the couch?

with such a life, i find it hard to be a domestic goddess, but i do wish i could keep up – and keep my house in a manner that is suitable for friends to come into at any day/time. i have entertained friends at my place before, and it usually results in my dusting and clearing my place a couple of days beforehand, putting away things neatly, cunningly shoving things into cupboards and boxes, and finally, setting out the little pieces and candles to add that nice touch. just before my friends are due to arrive, i stand and look around the room, and catch myself thinking about just how nice my place can be – almost like a airbrushed photo off some home decor magazine.

and then the cycle starts – i try to come up with a system that will work. dust, clean and wash up regularly such that every little thing is taken care of. but when the dust returns on the countertop, the cups start piling up in the sink and hanging up the laundry seems like too big a task – i slip up.

and there come the days when i look around me, and i see books and the day’s paper strewn around, clothes piled on my bed, laundry spilling over my basket and all my mugs in the sink waiting to be washed. i tell myself i really should get down to doing all these chores, and then realise that i have to cook dinner as well. i give up, head out to buy dinner and ignore the tell-tale signs of my laziness around the house.