house warming

Life seems to be returning to normal. I hardly know where to begin as I return to blogging, though. There's so much in my mental queue! How 'bout just a promise of more to come, and a then a recounting of the big "nesting" event of the summer...

You know what they say about the difference between a house and a home, right? Well, how about the difference between a construction project and a home. That's the transformation that finally happened last month when we held our big open house to finally declare the "project" phase over.

We spent several weeks scrambling to do a little last-minute cleaning, decorating, landscaping, and "staging" of bookshelves and such. Not that everything is perfect -- we still have temporary paper blinds at our windows, unplanted shrubs and grasses scattered around outside, etc. -- but we at least got it to the point where nothing looked blatantly unfinished. It was nice to have a deadline to get us to finally make it look "done".

On the day of the open house, countless friends, neighbors, and colleagues from various spheres of our lives joined us to sip some champagne, wander through the house, and peek at a slide show we had running on our laptops showing "before" and "during" photos of the house and construction project. (The "after" they got to see first hand!) It lasted about three hours and was a giant blur of one friendly face after another. Much like our wedding fifteen years ago, it was a delight to have so many people we care about gathered together in one place.

At the end of the open house, we had a three-part house blessing that was the magic ingredient in completing the transformation from "project" back to "home". We're eternally grateful to our friend Cathie (who in addition to being our friend is also a Unitarian Universalist minister) for this gift. In part one of the blessing, everyone gathered outside for the ritual removing of the construction signs from our yard, followed by some words from Cathie, silent prayers and meditations, and then Bob and I smashing a bottle of champagne on the side of the house to officially "launch" it. In part two, some friends who had shared special times with us in our house over the years stayed to light candles, share memories, and sing a house-warming hymn (and, Wow!, were they good!). Then, finally, in part three, Bob and I walked Cathie through the entire house. We paused in each room to share our hopes for that space, and then Cathie said a short blessing and left a small "totem" object (a shell, a button, etc.) in each room to remind us of our intentions and of the blessings lingering throughout the house.

The next morning we awoke to a clean, beautiful, flower-bedecked bedroom and a kitchen and foyer that were scattered with cookies, muffins, soaps, bouquets, and other tasty and creative items that many unidentified guests had thoughtfully left behind for us, despite the "no gifts please" clause in our invitation. But the house was filled with something else too: The love and good wishes of so many dear friends, and our own sense that this house had become not just a home, but a sacred space that will help elevate the simplest moments of our lives and make them all seem just a little more special.