Home and Hearth

Arriving Moving-in day, the first night, and the first meal cooked.

• Blessing a House: A Rite for the Rooms You Live In The rooms are empty, and every sound you make comes back at you off the walls.
• Boxes in the Hall: A Working for Moving-In Day The van has gone.
• The First Night in a New Place There is a mattress on the floor and no bed under it yet, and one lamp standing on a cardboard box.
• Blessing the Kitchen: Bread, Salt and the First Meal Cooked Seven in the evening, in a kitchen that is yours as of eleven o'clock this morning.
• Living Alone for the First Time Eight o'clock on a Tuesday, and the flat is doing nothing at all, and nobody is due.

The threshold and what crosses it Doorways, keys, windows, guests, and clearing the air once they have gone.

• The Doorway: Working at the Threshold of Your Own Home The front door, seen from the inside, at half past six on a Tuesday evening.
• Keys: Cutting One, Giving One, Taking One Back The new key is on the kitchen table, and it does not look like the others.
• What Comes In at the Window The kitchen window at half past four in November, and the garden is still out there, just.
• The Table Set for Guests: Hospitality as a Working The table is laid and nobody has arrived yet, and the chairs are still square to it.
• Clearing the Air After a Visitor Two cups still on the table, the chair pushed back at an angle nobody in this house sits at, and the room somehow smaller than it was this morning.

Clearing and keeping Smoke and air, cleaning as a working, and a flame kept standing.

• Clearing a Room: Smoke, Air and the Four Corners The spare room has had its door shut since March.
• Turning the House Out: Cleaning as a Working The first warm day is never on the calendar.
• The Standing Light: Keeping a Household Flame It is four in the morning, and the house is dark except for one thing.
• The Room You Sleep In: Making a Bedroom Restful Eleven at night, and the bedroom door stands open onto a lit hallway.
• A Patch of Green: Balcony, Windowsill and the Smallest Garden The balcony is the width of a doorway and about as deep, and there are three pots on it.

When a home is difficult Cold rooms, landlords, housemates, and a house that does not feel right.

• A House That Does Not Feel Right You stop at the top of the stairs.
• When You Cannot Make a Home Quiet It is eleven forty, and the bass has been coming through the party wall for two hours.
• A Working for a Cold House and a Landlord Who Will Not Answer The condensation is on the inside of the glass again, and it has been since October.
• Housemates: A Working for a Home You Did Not Choose Alone Ten past midnight, and you have come down for a glass of water and nothing else.
• Making One Corner Yours There is a single bed against the long wall, and a chair beside it with three days of clothes on it.
• Two Homes: A Working for a Life Kept in More Than One Place The bag is by the door, and it has been by the door for eleven days.

Leaving, and the turning year Last nights, empty rooms, winter, and a house preparing for someone new.

• The Last Night in a House You Loved The room is bare, and it is the wrong shape, and on the wall there are four marks where the shelves used to be.
• The House After Someone Moves Out There is a rectangle of dust on the shelf where the speaker stood.
• Closing the House for Winter: Drafts, Dark and the Turned-In Season The first evening you close the curtains before dinner is never marked on anything.
• Preparing a Home for a Baby’s Arrival The room is half-painted, and the crib is still in its box against the wall.