Bring on the Apron

I couldn't believe when I took my students to the library on Tuesday how many large brown leaves from the 100+ year old oak and maple trees there were scattered all over the sidewalk.  The cicadas have started their nightly humming, a drone that almost lulls you to sleep, until you remember the old folk wisdom that once you hear them, only 6 weeks til the first frost.  Some would say this the sad part--summer coming to an end--but I welcome the fall with open arms.  The warm days and cool nights, the color of a different hue and deeper lushness, the smell of crispness, and all the wonderful comfort foods that come with it.

But it's not just the change to fall I am excited for; this year, fall is bringing changes to me.  Next week I start my foray into the freelance teaching artist world with my part-time job as Education Director with Prime Stage Theatre holding me somewhat steady.  I'm excited for what this next year will bring--and terrified at the same time.  But if I wasn't, I'd be worried.

I am also bursting with anticipation at the thought of being able to be home more.  I am undeniably a homebody.  I will take a movie on the couch or a fire out out on our back porch before a night out on the town any day.  When we first moved into the house 3 years ago, I was all into "keeping a good house" for my first "real" home--keeping up with cleaning, cooking, etc.--that I thought I was "supposed" to do.  And then graduate school came and that all went right out the window.

But now I find myself with another opportunity to reconnect with my home, all the changes it has gone through since we moved here three years ago.  Physically, the kitchen and back porch remodel, the switching of the rooms upstairs, and all those added details we've brought in piece by piece.  Emotionally, our connection to our dog, Beau, and to each other as married partners.  I am learning to value my home in an entirely new way.  It is not just that I feel as if I am supposed to keep a good home, but now I genuinely want to and am looking forward to having the luxury of time to be able to do things my way.  I want to get on a routine of homemaking activities, including cooking, cleaning, laundry, baking my own bread (oh I can't tell you how excited I am to endeavor down this road!), organizing paperwork, and other little projects around the house, like fiddling with the sewing machine, working in the garden, making natural products, etc.

Underneath it all seems to be a strong desire to be self-reliant.  I remember looking at this old Reader's Digest guide to Homesteading (or something like that) which my Dad had lying around his house.  In it was every kind of activity you could imagine, from dying your own yarn, to building a smoker, to raising livestock, to home preservation, to maple syruping.  And even then I remember thinking--how cool would it be to be able to do everything for yourself.  Cool and unbelievably hard.  I don't know how those pioneers did it, but dang--I want to give it a try. Couple my desire for self-reliance with how much I like to be thrifty and green, and I'm feeling really good about my potential success at this whole "homemaking" adventure.  On a tangentially related note, a friend asked us a while back if we wanted to "go off the grid."  No, not entirely, but wouldn't it be cool if in 2010 you really could?  Think about out society today--consumer-driven, lacking in hard-skills, disconnected from food and energy sources--and to know there's some people who are actually doing it?  It amazes me.  While I don't think I would want to distance myself from mainstream society that much, I definitely empathize with their motivations. 

Perhaps all this makes me sound like I want to be a 50s housewife (or a hippie radical--take your pick).  While I do not want to have the inequality that went along with the 1950s (Jake will still be expected to do his share of dishes!), I do want that sense of deep connectedness to the place I call my home (and the pearls, if possible).  I will admit--I am proud of all we've done with our home and all we continue to do with it.  Just like Home Improvements are never done, neither is Homemaking--there's always things to do and things to improve.  And if saying this makes me sound like a 50s housewife, then bring on the apron (and if it be of the tie-died variety, I shall not complain).  I'm not ashamed to admit that I am choosing to make my home and everything I do to make it a home a top priority.  Because as it changes and grows, so do I :-)