If there’s anything I’ve learned over our years of making home, it is that home is portable. Home is anywhere our family is together. For us “home” has been not only in our house on the hill, but in hotel rooms, on busses, in sports team arena locker rooms, auditorium dressing rooms, and sometimes in church Sunday School rooms or Pastors’ offices. I have made “home” in cottages at lakesides, cabins in the woods, and rental condos by the ocean.
My friend Peggy Benson taught me that seasoned travelers do not “travel light” if you’re a homemaker. When our kids were small, it was Peg who told me, “You can check two suitcases as easily as one.” Of course, that was when there were not the current limits on luggage. When our families vacationed together, I would find our kids drawn to Peggy’s room. When I went to find out why, I would discover that Peggy had made noodle soup in her hot pot, wrapped the children in a homemade throw or quilt, and had, in general, created a comfort zone in the Benson hotel room. Little did I know then how valuable her example would be!
Given any space that is ours for a time, I have learned to light a travel candle, put a favorite throw over the end of the bed (cashmere throws from Williams Sonoma take almost no room to pack yet are super soft and warm), add some flowers (roadside thistles and Queen Anne’s Lace will do) and make a hot cup of Earl Grey tea (my favorite teas are from Tea Forté).
One of my favorite travel tuck-a-ways are clear-vinyl vases (Wonder Vase), that store flat and fold out to hold a bouquet of prairie grasses or blue roadside chicory, wild daisies or orange daylilies.
Small embroidered linen guest towels spread over a hotel table give a simple but lovely setting for a couple of small antique books of English poetry and a picture of important loved ones framed in silk travel-frames.
I try to tuck in a game or two as a motivation for conversation. Travel Scrabble and Backgammon make a great alternative to T.V. after a day on the road…or on the beach.
I am usually responsible for decorating our home-away-from-home--our tour bus. I choose a pallet that is both light (to give the illusion of more space) and warm. Our present bus takes its color cues from nature: warm browns, russet, and creams with accents of robin’s egg blue. Pillows, soft throws, and subtle lighting seem to invite those who travel to put up their feet, lie back and enjoy a good cup of coffee. A coffee pot, a refrigerator stocked with good-for-you snacks, a cupboard full of organic cereals, and a bowl of fresh fruit on the table make this as near to home as it gets on the road.
If I have my way, there are always plenty of great books to read and a good collection of classical and other instrumental music to comb the tangles from our stressed-out psyches and provide food for the soul.
We have also taken our grandkids on bus week-ends, and what a time we had! We played games, made art projects, ate snacks and did homework. We had long conversations about everything from girlfriends and playground competitions to aspirations for the future. In short, we spent the week-end “at home”.
We have learned that home is wherever we can be together. Home is “building a nest” where we happen to be, in a hotel, on the bus, in a rented vacation space, or in a tent in the woods. Home is making memories together—on purpose. Home is as portable, well, as love.
