Home , health, and soccer Moms

Redesigning home may be the most important thing we do .Whether building, remodeling, renting or decorating, home choices fill our minds. I know for me, I spend time thinking about the garden, a small but fragrant herb one off my kitchen or I think about the windows and cleaning them for winter. So many simple tasks to keep it all together.

I have had difficulty with the superficial approach to how we live in our homes today. So often , the images and advice are too expensive, too unmanageable or just foolish. Home is really a place that should be a port in the storm from life. A place where our intimacy happens with family and friends.

I remember growing up in a neighborhood where we played with all the kids. Moving from house to house, we played for hours, rode bikes, sledded,laughed and went home, loved and tired. There were no seriously bad memories playing like this. Raising my own children, I watched as free time was replaced with structure, so much so there was no time for family on the weekend. As we all began rushing around, our childrens soccer awards filled the shelf and there was a great sense of loss. This business, in some way had replaced something much more valuable,imagination and creativity.

Homes today are frenzied environments, often too big to afford, both parents work, leaving an emptiness for everyone.

Home needs to be rediscovered by saying no. No to corporate moves, no to big, no to urban sprawl and no to soccer. With all the children I have known, and this is probably hundreds by now, I have never known a professional athlete. Never.

Home, our most sacred space needs to be redefined to include imagination and creativity by allowing unstructured time in a non stressful environment.