Today I spent time painting someone’s furniture. It felt good to take something out of a room where it had been for many years, paint it and put it back into the same room and watch it settle into place. It had a place to leave and a place to return to.

I never considered what it meant to have a place to leave. Leave is what do when we go out into the world. We leave home. Having a place to leave means that you had a place to be. Of course not all places are good places to but having a place is very different from not having a place. Right now I feel some craving for a place to leave from. Our green shag, temporary house does hold my desk. It holds the replacement rugs I found that are so similar to the ones that burned it is a bit spooky. It holds a few pieces of replacement Waterford crystal that are like our large collection we had gathered over the years, one piece at a time. All of these things are familiar but together they do not make a place. They make the things that are in a place but not the place itself.

This week we are tearing out the remains of our place. The “demolition guy” will be there to take apart and move away the remains of our house. There will be no foundation, cracked or otherwise. No parking pad, no house parts. The house will be good and truly gone. In its place a new house will spring forth but it will be a different place. We think it will be a place to leave but we have not yet meet this house-to-be so it is hard to tell.