Returning Home to Bloom Where I've Been Planted

Heaven's here on Earth. Musings on the sacred mundane.

Title: Dream House. Original paper collage by author Stella Lyn Norris

We’re back from a long sojourn in Texas. After spending five weeks in a hotel room with no personality, I’m reminded of how lucky we are to have our sweet little house.

The cheerful, bright turquoise door creaks open on its original 1942 hinges to reveal the familiar textures of all our treasures. 

Our instruments beckon from their hooks on the wall, and wake back up as we run our fingers over the strings, checking to see how out of tune they’ve become: not very, surprisingly. 

I move from room to room to see how my many house plants have fared. They were kept alive by a dear friend, kind enough to tend to them in our absence.

Notes I must’ve thought were important at the time lay in piles on my writing desk. My messy scrawl — evidence that my mind works faster than my hand — is nearly indecipherable to me now.

Ours is a home full of folk art, most of it made by people we love and cherish. I pull back the mango-yellow curtains in the kitchen, printed with vintage birds and flowers, to see the real-live version of the same moving around out in the yard.

The smell produced by eighty-year-old wood floors that have been holding their breath, waiting for our return, is hard to pin down. It’s almost sour, slightly dusty, though not unpleasant. The whole house seems to exhale along with us as the sunlight streams in where, for over a month, the shades have been drawn tightly against the outer world.

Mourning doves coo from the crepe myrtle tree, bursting with raucous pink blooms. The tiny alligator-like bodies of bright green anole lizards creep along the fence, expanding their bright orange throats when they stop every dozen steps or so to survey their surroundings. I scare one that’s taken up residence in a corner of the living room. It disappears behind the big, old fashioned radio.

Our walls are made of shiplap — wood from boats that came down the Mississippi, got dismantled, and was repurposed. I like to think of our home this way; something that once made a long journey, suspended over a great expanse of water. Now it stands firmly around us, and I wonder about all the stories it contains. Because of the propensity for flooding in this area, houses are constructed on piers. Hopefully the rains don’t get crazy enough to return the house to its original status. We aren’t off to a very good start, the way the weather’s been acting lately.

A couple of tornadoes came over our little town while we were gone, and left a big, brown watermark on the kitchen ceiling. Further investigation reveals that, no, there’s not leak in the roof — which is good. What appears to have happened is the rain got so wild, it blew sideaways and up during one of the storms, and was driven through a downward-facing vent to create a small pool in the attic. 

I’m glad the damage is not worse. A couple of trees have fallen over the fence and made a big mess of things, but that’s small potatoes compared to what I see around town: houses crushed under big trees, and sheds that have surrendered to the weight of large limbs.

The bayous are hugely swollen, and as the dogs and I walk beside them, we watch turtles plopping from the banks into the water. Neon green grasshoppers bounce off of my body as I move along beside the lazy water in the heat. They disappear into foliage of the exact same color, sharpening my eyes to pick them out as I meander on the muddy paths.

Back at the van, the dogs leap in, covering every surface with a thousand messy paw prints before I’ve even buckled my seat belt. I give up on trying to stay clean. I can’t be mad at our muddy dachshund, Mabel, when she sidles onto my lap to stick her head out the window. The wind lifts her big ears out from the sides of her long, narrow face to flap like Dumbo’s as we drive home. She gives me the whites of her eyes when I hose her off.

I am a creature of comfort, and it feels good to be back in my nest. To ground myself back into the here and now, I spend my first couple of days back at home doing an overhaul of the yard, which is a big mess of long grass, bolted plants, and fallen branches. The season changed while we were away. Some plants have already succumbed to the heat. Others have met a natural end, and stand bowing their heads, heavy in seed. 

My body quickly remembers the joy of having feet and hands in the soil. I know it’s not advisable to garden without gloves in Louisiana, but I can’t stand them. I watch carefully for snakes as I yank weeds, and I know which plants will cause a big, angry rash. Within minutes the dirt is black under my nails and sticking to the sweat that pours from me in rivulets. The recent rains have kept the mosquito population alive and well. These I swat, smearing more soil all over my skin, golden from all the hours logged by the pool on our trip. 

Revitalizing the garden beds reawakens my own natural vitality.

I’ve decided to steer away from growing so many vegetables this year. The critters around here always seem to get them before we can, which means a whole lot of work for not much reward. Instead, I’m introducing more flowers and herbs to the garden. I’m most excited to bring in some favorite medicinal plants.

After many wheelbarrow loads, I’ve spread new soil and worked in the compost. Now I putter around moving new plants, still in their pots, from place to place. I stand back like an artist, analyzing a work in progress. I cock my head and squint against the light, imagining the color pallate that will bloom as I decide where to place everything. I confer with the plants, consider their personalities and growing habits, and try to matchmake accordingly. 

Comfrey, mullein, and catnip, and some native, heat tolerant beauties — spilanthes, echinacea, red coreopsis, narrow-leaf mountain mint, lemon bee balm, and others. I stick some zinnias in the ground for cut flower bouquet-potential, plant some swamp milkweed to attract monarch butterflies, and sprinkle the yard with sunflowers. With any luck, soon these spindly beginnings will be burgoening with vibrance on tall stalks, attracting a multitude of pollinators. 

By evening I’m so sore, it’s barely eight o’clock when I collapse into bed — our own bed! The next morning, it all feels worth it as I drink my tea on the back deck and survey the new, improved garden, still shaded from what will become a punishing heat later in the day.

While I’m enthralled by the process of cultivating plants, it doesn’t hold a candle to what exists at the untamed, wild edges of the yard and in the forest; it’s there I’m always drawn further in. 

Wild Elderberry grows prolifically here in Louisiana, and hangs its big, white delicate heads made of hundreds of tiny blooms over the fence. I think of Petunia Dursley, Harry Potter’s nosy aunt. Like her, it’s keeping an eye on what’s going on over here. Already the branches are heavy with green berries that will ripen black, and get worked into syrups and tinctures — maybe even some jelly if I’m feeling ambitious. 

Banana plants that I whacked down in January after the killing frost are four feet tall again, luscious green, and in full bloom. 

Wild lettuce is growing so fast, you can practically watch it gain another six inches every day. I pulverize some of it and put it up in vodka. Later, when I strain it out, it will be a nice pain remedy to have around. 

Blackberries have worked their way through the fence, but before I hack them back, I collect some leaves to dry for tea. 

I love making a house a home. I’m always adding little touches here and there to make it the most restful and nourishing space it can be, and that includes having some favorite plant allies around to keep me company.

I wipe away a film from the furniture and kitchen counters- a strange combination of dust and grime that’s alchemized from neglect and settled out of the air when no one was around to keep vigil. It makes me believe this home has a soul, a sovereign spirit that moves in it. A secret life, all its own. It missed us. I infuse each surface with love as I swipe a rag across it.

What is home? A material place, yes — a roof with four walls. Something to hold us with the ones we love, to house our possessions and keep the elements at bay. But it’s something immaterial as well — a place without judgement. A place to be unguarded. A space to be yourself. 

My husband I collapse on the couch, pick up a guitar and a mandolin, and raise our voices in harmony. It reminds me of when my grandmother would return home, how she’d always call out Yoooo hoooo as we entered, even when she knew no one was there. She was greeting the house itself.

The dogs run back and forth to the yard, picking up where they left off on squirrel patrol duty. The house is happy now, and so are we. 

There’s nothing more sacred to me than the ordinary stuff of life. Brushing teeth next to the person you love, wagging eyebrows and exchanging goofy, foamy smiles in the mirror. Tucking in at the end of a long day, listening to cicadas and nightbirds in the big oak. Staring wordlessly off into space together, pinned down by groggy dogs still resting in their perfect peace before rising for the day. Sharing breakfast in the bright morning light of a new day that filters through the bamboo shades and calls you to it, the way a flower turns its face to the sun.

Our friends Caleb and Reeb performing a song Caleb wrote: Innocent Road. The title track on their record by the same name features my husband on the fiddle.