I Miss Having a Driveway

Something I was thinking about a month ago while I was home for a few days before my intensive started. Probably around the 4th of July or so, I think I was home for Mom’s Bday. Anywho I remember spending the time inside my parent’s house, having a driveway to wash my car, a backyard with grass, plants to tend and garden, or plants to have your children tend. It isn’t about the driveway but rather the sense of a house and a building that is a place to call your own.

I think after having lived in an apartment for almost two and a half years on a renting agreement I had forgotten what that sense of ownership does. It isn’t that I haven’t done some nice things with my very small space, but rather all the things that I wish I had time to do, or want to do, or would do if I knew I was going to live here for another 5-10 years. But there is something about having a driveway that appeals to me.

This apartment/condo living where basically the landlords build parking lots around buildings just don’t appeal to me anymore. It is a way to live, but it just doesn’t feel like home to me. Now I’m not sure if it is that I’m just getting older or graduating or having a late 20s crisis of life, but I have never had this sense of needing a ‘house’ to feel like I’m living. But the more I think about it, and as I helped some friends move from an apartment complex into a house, I find that I miss having a house with a driveway.

I think there is something inherent in a house that is welcoming, inviting, and feels like a place of rest. I have seen this not only in my parent’s house but also in some of the people that live in houses that have been converted to housing by Fuller. Some of the intentional communities are just welcoming just by the nature of their construction. It isn’t like your walking into a two-room place where there is a living room/study room and then a bedroom that is just used for sleeping. But a house has this living room, where you like … live (weird I know) … and beds and study places are tucked away behind doors and there is a sense of division between work and play.

I think it is a little like multitasking … I have a studio loft, which is basically a one-room thing with an upper floor where I store my bed and clothing. The downstairs is my study room, living room, kitchen, dining room, music room, library and spare bedroom all in one. I can entertain dinner for 6 but I have to fold up my coffee table hide it under my couch/futon (which is where I keep my guitar cases when not in use), slide the couch/futon about 4 feet, and then pull another chair out of my closet for 4, barrow 2 more chairs if I want to do 6, and set a table that is a little tight even with 3.

I love cooking for others, and as a general rule I find the most joy in my life when I am serving others. Often that is in the form of food, but functions in conversation as well. I would host more … if I felt like it wasn’t a chore to do so. So I miss my driveway where 4 cars could drive up and unload guests to share food and fellowship (and maybe an occasional game) for the sole sake of having a place that doesn’t just feel like home, but is home.

Maybe it also has something to do with the issue that I’m moving in a month too. Could have something to do with this as well.