Home Body
Alice Lowe
photo by Anne Day
Word Count 764
At 8:00 a.m. workers arrive to install our new heating and cooling system. I steel myself for a day of noise and disruption. My husband has a studio, our converted garage, for his painting and music, so he’s not distracted by what goes on in the house. My office is a small den open to the living room; much of the work will take place a few feet away. Will I be able to work? Do I need to? It’s a beautiful day, sunny and mild. I’m a half-hour walk from Balboa Park. I could sit on a sunny bench with a book; I could go to one of the park’s museums, have lunch at my choice of lovely spots. I could visit a friend, go to the library, get a pedicure. I could, but despite the commotion, I prefer to stay home.
Homebody—the word speaks for itself, home and body joined in verbal wedlock since the early 19th century to designate one who prefers to stay home. Homebodies are self-motivated, happy to be in their own company. They don’t need to be propped up or entertained by others. That’s my take on it, yet what should be a positive and judgment-free attribute often takes on a negative slant. A homebody is boring, unadventurous, a stick in the mud (a cliché, I know, but picture it, a stick mired in mud). Like introverts—I’m one of those as well; the two often go together—we’re put in a position of defending ourselves, apologizing for an inoffensive proclivity because it defies the norm. Our culture glorifies sociability, favors those who are outgoing (in both senses of the word), eyes the reticent and reclusive with suspicion.
My house is very small, at 700 square feet the smallest single-family dwelling in an upscale, urbane neighborhood. “Location, location, location” was the mantra when I bought it 25 years ago, when San Diego real estate was still within reach for a single, middle-aged professional woman. I loved its nest-like coziness. It was my refuge, my cocoon, my sanctuary, a one-person house that stretched just enough to accommodate another when I married a few years later.
As a body that’s happiest at home and now retired, Covid-19—its global tragedy notwithstanding—has been a minor blip in my day-to-day life. Which consists of vigorous morning walks, after which I settle into my comfortable routines, writing, reading, and puttering in house and garden, which is what I call my collection of potted plants on our canyonside deck and patio.
I’m not agoraphobic, not a hermit, not anti-social or depressed. I see friends for walks at the bay, lunches out, visits to galleries and bookstores. And after a few convivial hours, I return home, gratefully, to my haven. I compare myself to a cordless toothbrush or an electric car; I’m good for a certain number of hours or miles, but then I need to return to my base, plug in and recharge. I’ve always enjoyed being at home, though not to this extent, not what you’d call a homebody, until recent years. It takes a degree of self-possession that I’ve grown into over time. In my youth I was too fearful that I'd miss out on something if I wasn’t present and actively engaged. Clinging to the nest may stem from anxiety, extreme in the case of agoraphobics, milder and understandable when the environment feels out of control, and maybe there’s an element of that as well. The world can be a scary place, home a safe shelter where we fortify ourselves for the next foray into society.
Homebodiness is the blessed state, home the sacred space. If I were facing an imminent expiration date and the option to go anywhere in the world to enjoy my final days, I’d choose to remain in situ, surrounded by my buttercup yellow walls, the tchotchkes and found objects—a scale-model Airstream trailer, an orange ceramic chicken, a flute-playing Krishna and more—on the mantel and windowsills, my desk looking out on the sparrows and squirrels feeding on the deck, my books and papers, my husband’s art on the walls, our comfortable clutter.
The workers get underway, and I retreat to my corner desk to write the Great American Novel. Well, no, to start a new essay, this essay. And my laptop crashes. I drop it off at the repair shop and think, I’m out, I should go somewhere, do something … I don’t have a computer … it’s a lovely day … the house is in disarray …. But I come straight back, a body at home.
Alice writes about life and language, food and family. Her essays have been published in more than eighty literary journals, this past year in Bacopa, Change Seven, Epiphany, Burningword, (mac)ro(mic), New World Writing, and Sport Literate. She recently won an essay contest at Eat, Darling, Eat, and her work has been cited twice in Best American Essays “Notables.”