Home base

The last three months have been pretty packed with travel, both for work and pleasure. The holidays in Atlanta, a 4-day photo-shoot in the Tucson desert mid January (see the earlier post A marvelous day in the desert and a couple more), two trips for my work to Boston in February, a week sun soaking in Florida for my birthday, Gabriella's beading and book co-authoring trips in March - ten days to Tucson and 6 days to San Diego, and I just got back from another trip to Massachusetts. Travel is part fun, part torture, part exhausting, so it sure is good to be back home with your love.
GABROEN is not the type of 'wherever I lay my head is my home', but after more than a year in Chicago, it actually starts to show some homey symptoms. The city was interesting from the first visit, but living 40 miles north, Chicago to us unfortunately never really becomes more than that: an interesting, close-by city that we visit. And we remain visitors to Chicago.
A great city nevertheless.



Once you move out of your home country, 'home' becomes somewhat of a relative concept. For a place to become home, you need to have 'stuff'. Stuff you're attached to, such as your favorite chair to chill and play your iTunes library, your art work to hang on the walls, your pillow next to your love's pillow. Our first month in the US, with our goods still in transit across the Atlantic, we quickly realized that a house without your stuff is like a hotel. Next to stuff, you also need warmth. Literal warmth from a working furnace (and in the case of Chicago also good insulation to keep the arctic winds out), but also the warmth from people around you. That is where the northern suburbs take their time - they are not eagerly sharing warmth the first day you get here. In our case, it's taking more than a year now. But it is growing on us; our comfortable home base with all of our stuff is becoming a nucleus of heat in a lukewarm neighborhood. At least to me it is..........