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Homes

Front Porch: Settling in, feeling at home

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published January 6, 2006

I am standing in the sunroom of my new home looking out at the lanky shorebirds that flock around a cluster of mangroves a short walk from my back deck.

At sunset, the glow of the fading daylight illuminates the underbelly of the plants, a tangle of sculptural roots that twine like the arms of couples dancing.

For the first time in years, I finally own my own place, a small, tightly designed 1970s-era condo just big enough for one girl and hundreds of books piled in a half dozen wicker plant holders recently rescued from a Dumpster.

I cannot describe how good it feels to live somewhere that is really mine. It isn't much, really, a former winter getaway for a New York artist and his wife, never updated and scarcely lived in - at least for the past few years.

I make do with old kitchen Formica, ripped-out bathroom mirrors and a botched paint job - my own doing in my haste to make my surroundings beautiful. But I don't care.

I love it here.

As I walk from room to room and memorize the light, the smell, the sounds from my neighbors, I know I have finally come home to my own home.

There is something divine and wonderful about a new home because of the chance it offers to rethink your worldly belongings and how you use them. I've divested myself of a lot lately, driving carloads of knickknacks, wine glasses, pillows and holiday decorations to the loading dock of my favorite charity.

What's left in my possession is my pared-down decorating soul, the distillation of who I am and what I really care about.

My antique Florida postcard collection is finally on display, wedged beneath a sheet of glass and my hot pink cocktail table. My grandmother's handmade quilts are in view too, at long last, folded in colorful stacks on my century-old wrought iron bed and in the cubbyholes of a West Indies-style computer wardrobe (a lucky find at a consignment store). A black and white Clyde Butcher poster of a Florida wetland scene waits to be hung, as does my collection of folk art, paintings and photography.

I recently retrieved a scallop-backed chaise lounge with decadent down cushions - another family heirloom - from a storage locker in Stuart because I think it will make a wonderful place to read. I plan to sell just about everything else I've been hoarding in storage all these years, with the exception of a 1940s wrought iron patio dining set and an equally vintage shortwave radio that still tunes in the sounds of the world.

A few weeks ago, a friend said: "Well, you know it's okay to get rid of things because you've finally bought your own place. You don't need to save stuff anymore, you can let go."

Letting go.

That I've definitely done.

For someone like me who has fecklessly rented for much of her adult life, buying a home is about letting go more than anything else. It's about letting go of the idea that you're free to pack up your possessions at will and move to a faraway city and start over. It's also about letting go of the idea that you're still young enough that investing in real estate doesn't matter.

A widely known local artist whose home was featured a few years ago on a garden tour sagely mused on the subject of home ownership. I will never forget her words: "Buying a home is a commitment."

By that, she meant when you finally buy a home, you are committing to a city, a neighborhood, the plants in your garden, to yourself.

Last spring, I looked at another condo in this same complex and decided against it because it wasn't quite what I wanted. As I drove home that day with another commitment-phobic friend, we joked about how fast I could actually buy and sell a condo and still make a profit.

Now that I've finally bought my own place, selling it is unimaginable.

I love my new home in a way I could never love a rental apartment - no matter how cool and funky - because it is permanent, not temporary. It is something tangible that I can fiercely hang on to no matter what happens in life, whether I marry, whether I realize all of my dreams or simply make a living and let go.

Late one recent afternoon, as the daylight softened and the shorebirds glided on a last puff of chill winter breeze, I lit a candle, sat on my deck and celebrated the New Year and my commitment.

At home at last, I thought to myself.

At home at last.

[Last modified January 5, 2006, 08:50:08]