What makes a house a home...

I'm not very sentimental. At least not now. If I can't scan it or put it in a nicely organized scrapbook, I pretty much throw it away. I'm relentless.

I figure, you can't take it with you, so why bother holding on to something where its utility has passed?

There was one night, when I was 23, after I had gotten back from Germany and before I was embarking on a 2 year trip to Japan, when I cleaned out (entirely) the room in my parents house where I had grown up.

I remember crying on the floor at 2am or so. Not so much because I was throwing things out, but because it represented, somehow, losing the comfort of the nest and the need for self-reliance (until that is, I had kids, and now I need my parents again!!).

When I lived in Europe and Asia, I was living out of 2 duffle bags and in Japan, in particular, I didn't have much room to spare.

Consequently, I didn't "bring what I couldn't carry" [still my travel motto] and was very Spartan in my outlook.

Also, I'd been in way too many houses that were filled with years of accumulated junk.

It's better now, but once upon a time, if you went into the garage of my parents' house, you'd see boxes and boxes of my dad's legal files...from 1961. He claimed that we might be interested in them one day. I claimed we'd be interested in burning them.

I resolved myself to doing my kids a favor. Before I die, I'll have cleaned out the useless stuff they won't care about (or the stuff I don't think they'll care about) and basically leave them a nicely organized paper scrapbook (now also digital, of course) so they won't spend time sorting through it.

Why do I say all of this?

I think it has to do with one simple act the other morning that injected a hint of sentimentality in me.

Calanit is a pretty serious artist. She loves to paint and draw. I’d keep one out of every 10 (put it in a scrapbook) and throw the others way…figuring we didn’t need the clutter (it upsets my OCD mind).

We made 2 paintings together and she was particularly proud of them (so was I!). Since our basement is wood paneling-no paint will be peeled off-I dedicated a corner (probably will turn into the whole room) as Calanit’s art gallery.

High enough for her to see but still be out of Paco’s reach, I stood there looking at these drawings and thought…

This is what makes a house a home.