Everyone has their habits and routines. But I guarantee you don’t realize how many until they disappear — especially after 20+ years.
Things have been extremely sparse around here because I am still adjusting to living in a new home after just under 23 years in the house we built. For example, the living room where I’ve had my morning coffee and read the local daily read isn’t there (nor is the local daily, but that’s another story). That also means the chair I sat in is in an environment in which I am not used to reading and is no longer has a bookcase to my left. The silverware isn’t in the drawer to the right of the dishwasher. In fact, there’s nothing but empty space to the right of the dishwasher. And don’t get me started on where light switches are and the way they’re set up. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve used the correct switch to turn on the lights in the garage in the 5 weeks we’ve lived here.
And the physical dislocation affects routines. I was out of town this week so, while sitting in a restaurant Tuesday night, I decided to take a look at my RSS reader. I discovered that it had been 30 days since the last I looked at almost all the 100+ feeds was 30 days before. And I’m pretty sure I did a “mark all as read” back then (and haven’t looked at them again since Tuesday night). It isn’t just that I’ve been busy. The places where I routinized so many day-to-day activities aren’t here so I’ve lost many automatic and subconscious reminders. Those routines/habits haven’t been created here yet.
So, it might still be a while before Weekend Edition and other things on the blog return to some semblance of normality. I can assure you, though, that the past five weeks establish that “home” isn’t a structure or place. It’s where you return to the people (and dogs) who are your life.
The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
