Slow Havamal: 36

[kylec]

In the 36th verse, we’re advised to have somewhere we can call “home,” even if it’s tiny—just a couple of goats an a leaky roof. Anything is better than being a beggar.

In another great Havamal synchronicity, I find this verse on a week in which my wife and I viewed a condo for sale—a tiny thing, but the only one within many miles that we could possibly afford. Of course, there were already tons of offers inflating the price beyond its worth and we didn’t even bother to try. A difficult part of the home search for me has been the fact that I grew up in the rural south, where even the poorest man has a home, a yard, and probably some livestock and a roof leak from the latest hurricane. Surroundings breed expectations. I thought this would be the case when I reached adulthood, but a move and a bonkers housing market have left many in my generation redefining our basic assumptions. I’ve talked to others who, like me, would just give up if it didn’t mean sleeping under an overpass.

Odin confirms that’s a poor strategy. Whose word is better to take on this than the consummate Wanderer’s? In terms of housing, I have to remind myself that what was true at a different time in a different place is under no obligation to show up for me here and now. To share a wall and not have a single patch of dirt to your name beyond the front door would drive many country boys to Drano. But if my discontent is based on my indignation that the world dared to change around me, what’s crazy: the housing market, or me?

I may have to settle for something with fewer beds, bathrooms, and outdoor spaces than I wanted. It may include noisy neighbors above, below, on all sides. All of that may cost me more than I ever dreamed of paying. But something is indeed better than nothing. Most of us will spend our lives in the respectable middle between a tar paper shack and a castle. Water may seep in, the people upstairs may stomp, and our storage options might force us to forgo things we really wanted. But a home is a safe place to lay your head. It need not be erected each evening and torn down at dawn. It saves us energy and reduces stress (the stresses associated with ownership are far less doom-ridden than those that come with a hobo’s life).

A home is more than the physical space. Just look at the wide variety of spaces people settle into: from the aforementioned castles and shacks, to trailers, condos, and houses of every kind. What does the word even mean, then? An enclosure that protects a person and his possessions, maybe. But beyond the walls, it means a starting point. The place we begin and end the day, constant and forgiving. It gathers together those we love, and places a set of limits on our living that forces us to get creative at times. It’s a reset button. Both the place we depart and the place we seek to return, better off for the activities we undertook outside its fold. What resources we have beyond our innate skills also reside here, and barring thieves and fire, we can expect to find them again and again. Think of your life as a sphere—the places, people, and actions you experience over broad stretches of time. The home is the invisible middle for the extending radii that reveal the circumference of what we are capable of exploring. That point may change, and the sphere with it, but a little change is a good thing, just as the constant change of a drifter can wear him down.

It’s more than even that nucleus for the family, though. I would extend home to those beliefs and habits that comprise our wisdom. When we encounter the new, we hold it to the measuring stick of home. In navigation, it’s not enough to know where you stand. You must be able to relate it to at least one other place to find direction. Home gives us a critical piece of that equation, so however meager our means, it’s worth keeping it in our bearings when we roam near or far.