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To Have a House

On Refuge: Keeping the House in Order

November 4, 2021 by Cheryl Wilder

looking up the base of a large maple tree at night with large white christmas lights wrapped around it

My focus this fall has been big picture thinking about my career trajectory. It includes a lot of organizing, outlining, and strategy. In other words, it’s a lot of feeling like I’m accomplishing nothing. (Ugh, I feel like I’m eating my tail.) But. I know I am making progress. And I listen to the knowing more than the feeling (sigh), especially when it comes to this kind of work.

All the long-term planning made it difficult for me to get into the nitty-gritty of writing this post. For inspiration, I looked at old blog posts and felt a spark from February 2020—the before times—and read something I forgot I wrote (such is my way). I started writing from the spark, and then the idea got too long (again, my way).

I’m looking for a Goldilocks moment here.

Someday, I will pursue the topic in more breadth and depth. For now, I think about “keeping the house in order” in three ways: 1) the shelter where we live; 2) the body we live in; 3) a hobby or art or work that gives us meaning and contentment (poems are a house I live in). Tending to these places–these refuges–keeps me grounded. I mentioned in July that I was feeling upheaval which I haven’t settled from, and I know it has to do with publishing the book. I like working on large projects and haven’t filled that hole yet. It will happen, that’s one of the factors in all the planning, but until then I need to paint (more) walls, build shelves, or work out. (I painted a rainbow wall in September.)

Alas, here’s a section from the blog post that inspired me:

The word “home” in western culture comes from the Old Norse word heima, meaning “at home”. In its inception, the word encompassed the house and the household: dwelling, refuge, ownership, affection, the overall feeling of the place.

When I think of how to build self-esteem or self-confidence, the words that define the meaning of heima make sense to me.

  • I am my own shelter; when I turn inward, there is a refuge.
  • As a source of affection, I am kind to myself, and therefore, self-reliant in times when I feel lonely.
  • I am confident when I feel ownership over my body, emotions, and thoughts.
  • It’s not how I see myself on the outside but how I feel about myself. Trust the overall feeling of the place. 

When I work to feel at home within myself, I simultaneously work on how I feel in a room, in a house, with other people, and in society. To build a home within me is to build a home within the world. I take refuge, affection, dwelling, and an overall feeling wherever I go. As my body changes with age, illness, or injury, it’s like moving into a new house; I learn the quirks of the structure; I make changes to represent the old me in a new space.

Filed Under: To Have a House, Writing Life

To Have a House

November 15, 2020 by Cheryl Wilder

white translucent jellyfish in dark blue water

Four years ago, when it was clear the people in our country were so divided, I decided to focus on what unites us. My mind naturally went to “home.” Everyone in the country has a relationship with the inanimate place we call a house.

Yet, the depth of a house’s impact often goes unnoticed. When we talk about the influence of place, we start with urban, suburban, or rural. We say Victorian, cookie-cutter, bungalow, brick ranch, double-wide. These are big-picture descriptions that only begin to explore how human experience is interwoven with the house.

How often do we talk about the meaning of a bedroom door? What do barred windows teach us about safety? When do we slow down to see how the details of place shape us?

In Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard says, “A rather large dossier of literary documentation on the poetry of houses could be studied from the single angle of the lamp that glows in the window.”

I wonder what we would learn if every voter had to write a poem from the angle of a lamp in their house. Maybe similarities in our griefs and anxieties, shared joy in births and anniversaries, differences in décor, inspirations in design, offers of advice.

And I wonder how the poems would change over the years. If we had the same lamps but in different windows.

Now that I think about it, I’m going to write a poem “from the single angle of the lamp that glows in the window.”

Care to join me?


“Come what may the house helps us to say: I will be an inhabitant of the world, in spite of the world.”

Gaston Bachelard, Poetics of Space

Quote and photo by author. All rights reserved.


Filed Under: To Have a House

On Having

April 8, 2017 by Cheryl Wilder

birdhouse over marshland with three birds

Excerpt from “To Have A House,” What Binds Us (Finishing Line Press 2017).

I mentioned in the first “On Having” post the idea of pairing this same question with different images. Behold, the second installment. Honestly, I could use this same quote in every post, with every image and see how many tangents my mind can wander in to. No surprise, I have no idea how often I will use this quote, though since we are relocating in the near future it is heavy on my mind. Not that it isn’t ever-present already–the subject of home is near and dear.

It may or may not be obvious (by my lack of posting a photo in a few weeks), that I have yet to figure out a good schedule for me. This struggle has always kept me from blogging in any form, but I love the image/quote enough to put myself out there and flounder along the way until I find my rhythm. Weekends probably aren’t best. Occasionally we do get out of town. And I don’t work in the same way as Instagram phenoms do; I can’t take photos all in one or two days to then post all month. Similar to how I dislike packing for a week’s vacation because I just don’t know how I will feel in a week and therefore unsure what I will want to wear. I want the posts to reflect as much of my inner-life in the moment. So let’s just say, when I disappear for a few weeks, you are witnessing my hermit take over, the one who retreats and never asks permission first.

Photo taken by author. All rights reserved.


Filed Under: On..., To Have a House, Win at Life

On Having

February 4, 2017 by Cheryl Wilder

white jellyfish in black water at aquarium

Excerpt from “To Have A House,” What Binds Us (Finishing Line Press 2017).

It was hard to pick a photo for this quote. Every image created different dialogue and perspectives in my head. You will see this quote again and again, as I embark on a tangent, paring it to various images. I can’t wait to take more photos with this quote in mind! Such a simple question. Such a complex one, too.

Photo taken by author. All rights reserved.


Filed Under: On..., To Have a House

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"The future way of life consists in the recovery of the intimacy of life."
—Sigfried Giedion, art and architecture historian

Cheryl Wilder, a middle-aged woman with short brown hair, wearing a black puffy jacket, holding a pen on a cold day at the Sonoma Coast in CA

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