up it goes

If your house burned down, it'd be sad. Awful, frightening, heartbreaking, and sad.

If you could run in beforehand and pick out a few cherished items, it'd be a little less sad.

If you took a pretty photo of the items, and then had a few other people do the same thing with a few of their cherished items, it'd be art.

My list of things to grab if the house was burning down:

Small wooden box of vintage and silver jewelry.

Birthday boots, brown leather.

Hard drive with photos.

Metal straight pins from Peru.

Two scarves from Thailand.

Camera.

Recipes.

Box of baby clothes and handmade toys.

Small metal 'vase' with dried flowers from when I was a kid.

That one love letter I requested and was actually given.

I'm pretty sure this list would make me cry if my house burned down, and I'd add a few hundred more things (like my silver cutlery, my favorite heels, a few vintage dresses, and all of my art) but it's a pretty good start. I think if I lost everything else (not including people or dogs) I would be pretty okay if I had these things.

I'd like to put it out there that this doesn't mean I have a good plan and I feel like my house might burn down. I'd really rather not ever have to deal with that. But I'm glad I have a list.

photos courtesy of black eiffel

but really courtesy of the burning house

where home is

Every day I drive by a once-beautiful old house that went up in flames in December. I've seen it since the day after, when everything was still soggy from the fire truck hoses, it's many windows burned out, a highchair fried and crispy sitting on the porch, every door gone, and giant holes in the roof.

After a week or so a wire fence went up, and pieces slowly disappeared. The siding was mostly removed, and dumpsters were filled with the wreckage inside. Today as I headed in to work, there was an excavator digging at it, and half the house was gone, leaving a blackened half-husk where home used to be.

It made me think (as many things seem to do) what is home? And where?

After riding on a motorcycle for 6 months and through 12 countries, rarely staying in any place for more than one night, (and with a bag about the size of a grocery sack), I learned that for me home is wherever I am, and sometimes who I am with. It is the love I have cultivated with family and friends, and the feeling that wherever I am, I am home.

Don't get me wrong, I have been known to form strong attachments to things. Things like vintage hat boxes and dresses, travel photos, my favorite books, pretty dishes and aprons. But I learned after a rather brutal separation with all of what I considered my 'home' that these things merely surround me in a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing way. They do not make me homeless by not existing.

Well, unless my house burns down.

Which makes me wonder if I'd feel the same if my things were taken suddenly by fire or theft, and not simply sold or tucked away in a storage unit.

I'm thinking probably almost definitely most likely not. But I'm glad I had a chance to see what it felt like.

The Ballard House Fire, and Engine 21 out of Greenwood.