Praise for Our Story of Home
“A guide to the well-lived life, covering everything from our relationships and culture to our place in the natural world.”
-Isabel Allende
“A feast of imagination and memory. Our Story of Home will ground you, soulfully and psychologically, and remind you that making a home is what makes us human.”
-Phil Cousineau
“A rich and much-needed meditation on where and how we live. Andrews draws on myth, politics, and personal history to explore our lifelong quest for home and community.”
-Jean Shinoda Bolen
In Our Story of Home, Valerie Andrews examines the role home has played in her own life, and for some of our greatest storytellers. Jane Austen’s heroines met their fate in the confines of an English drawing room; Herman Melville’s desk in Massachusetts faced a hill shaped like a whale, reminding him of his seafaring adventures; Virginia Woolf’s novels were meditations on domestic life and Mary Oliver built a miniature house from scraps, crafting it as carefully as she would a poem.
Andrews also explores the deep psychology of home, noting that the psychiatrist C.G. Jung had two houses, each corresponding to different aspects of his personality. At his formal residence in Küsnacht, Switzerland, he entertained colleagues and raised a family, yet at his rustic retreat on lake at Bollingen, he lived with nature and honed his concept of eternity. Our dwellings—no matter how simple or how grand—must support our relation to the family and society and also provide a sanctuary for our innermost thoughts.
Our experience of home has been shaped by mythology and folklore—as well as by traditional crafts, animals, food and music. The latter not mere adornments but vital presences that enrich our daily lives. Andrews describes these grounding aspects of home; she shows how playing the piano can help us deal with loss and grief; a housecat’s purr can calm and soothe us; and why compatibility at the dinner table provides the foundation for a dynamic marriage.
She also tackles the cult of minimalism, noting that the 20th century artists who inspired this trend lived in studios that were overcrowded, cramped and organized as haphazardly as a hoarder’s den. A welcoming home, she suggests, embraces both order and creative chaos. Like the Japanese garden, it makes room for both simplicity and abandon.
As climate change forces us to relocate, and technology intrudes more upon our private space, how can we affirm the essence of home? Andrews champions Slow Housekeeping (an approach to tending the home akin to the Slow Food movement), the virtues of the analog life, and the practice of treating household objects as our soulful companions. Drawing on a wealth of sources, she shows how home can engage the senses and provide a refuge in uncertain times.
Our Story of Home addresses our lifelong search for a home in the body of the world. The author includes writing prompts to help readers uncover and share their own tales of longing and belonging. Ideal for writing circles and discussion groups, this volume will also be a valuable addition to libraries and research collections.
