When you think about building a house or a home what kind of images of white pretty houses surrounded by picket fences might spring to mind? or perhaps your vision is a double story brick house. Or maybe the more ambitious think of Provencal mansions by sea … and then or perhaps the mind turns to interiors. The sofa, the wall colours, maybe you like herringbone floorboards or plush white carpets. Bathrooms with steam showers and walk in wardrobes.
Much like those renovation or house building shows on TV, the story ends, the success is had when the house is built, the décor has been installed, the pillows fluffed and fresh flowers and a cheese board rests on the kitchen bench. A vanilla candle burns somewhere. What happens after that ?
I had a home that I had put effort into décor wise, with what I could afford, and with things I had spent a lot of time searching for, that were beautiful but not necessarily expensive. I said what surrounds me matters, I don’t like things to be ugly, it doesn’t have to be flashy or slick or even new, but there should be a level of care in the way it’s put together, it should feel warm and cosy, things matching or artfully mismatched. Old good quality things that are rustic and authentic instead of new and cheap or just worn out. Orderly clutter conceals things that can’t be fixed, a preference over the look of sparseness. Minimalism is different to ‘not enough; it’s all in the type of layout. I had a home that I built with hope, with dreams and borrowed money, with generosity towards myself and my new baby, so the love would surround her in every way.
What is often forgotten is the house you build with the company you keep, the habits you give energy to, the words you use and of course your thoughts. I wonder sometimes of the power of thoughts because I have met some wonderfully negative and jealous people who have built lives for themselves that outwardly seem fantastic. Perhaps though, the house they really live in doesn’t extend to the material world, the house you really live in is in your mind. You hang the wallpaper, design the pattern on the curtains, choose to see only the good, somehow repel the troublemakers, the negativity bearers, the liars, the firemen and women who waterboard you with their jealousy and feast on the schadenfreude when you trip and fall.
The world we live in is much like a house, the biggest share house ever. We try to ignore or remove the housemates who steal our food from the fridge, set fire to the kitchen and raid our bedrooms for our treasures. We are sometimes initially enthralled by those larger-than-life characters who seemed to promise entertainment and lightness when we first met them, but soon you realise it’s mostly a façade and they are unreliable and honestly, just between us, more trouble than they are worth. Then there are the ones promising to help, to make the world better, they say they have best of intentions, without really specifying what it is they intend to happen. And of course, that’s because they have no intention of actually helping you or the world, their actual intention is that you can’t see them stabbing you in the back while they help themselves to your life.
So, when I think about building a house these days, me and the world we live in should both think beyond the bricks and mortar, soft furnishings and Italian made lamps. To not accept a house viewed through a filter, a house that looks real, but is really just a curtain painted with the picture of house covering a broken reality. To give long and hard consideration to the words we use, the words we want to hear, the actions we want to receive, the energy we give out and how we share the resources we have amongst us, whilst also taking a long hard look to how we work alongside each other so that everyone has not just a seat at the table, but a full plate of food too.
Morgan May 
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