If you had told me that homemaking would be my best teacher …

I would have laughed. I planned a bright career outside of my home; a big life. I never once consciously considered that the art of homemaking would ultimately become the primary focus of my attention. That was for the doyennes, the social elite, the women with money and time and status to spare. I had none of those things, so I pushed on and out into the world without much of a plan other than to get educated, make a difference, find a purpose, oh and try to look good while doing all of the above.

But looking back after 10 weeks at home during COVID-19, it’s easier to spot how the world had a hidden plan for me. I use the word hidden because I believed that a beautiful home life would effortlessly manifest while I chipped away at science and math and tech, held a variety of professional roles that had me clamoring like an evangelist for parity for patients in America’s unjust healthcare sector. Somehow, I figured, I’d raise my children while my husband travelled all over the world pursuing a career as an award-winning photojournalist.

Through it all, and entirely unconsciously, I desperately created homes, a sense of rootedness amidst all of the busy movement and uprooting my life’s journey has brought. Until recently, when we moved to California, I didn’t fully “see” how much time and effort I was directing into house and hearth.

I couldn’t see it because I would have had to admit how terribly, gut wrenchingly lonely I felt after leaving my childhood home in my 20s, my Boston home in my 30s, my DC home at 50.

I couldn’t consciously acknowledge how much I needed a sense of home until I could confront the aching yearning for it that I carried like a constant drum beat in my heart… maybe that makes no sense to you, but I am a small town girl, born and raised in a hamlet on the east end of long island. I spent most of my days outside, walking and wandering and dreaming. I worked for every neighbor. I mowed lawns, babysat, provided pet care. I was alone a lot — which felt like freedom not abandonment — and I used all that fresh air and freedom to dream and imagine all that my life would become…

So these days at home with COVID-19 have me wrestling and reconciling some longstanding conflicts I’ve been private about, or unaware of.