This Feeling I have about The House...

Do you believe in the energy of a space?

**

It’s Summertime. I’m running down a hazy, long Lincolnshire road. It’s early evening and the birds are shouting about their day, passing messages from tree to tree. The leaves dapple the light, and the golden puddles that make it through the thick, green blanket overhead look like brushstrokes on the tarmac.

This stretch is one of my favourites. A broad straight road with a canopy of leaves arching from the path on each side, stretching towards each other, almost meeting over my head. Thick woods stretch out beyond on both sides, I imagine I’m slicing my way through the middle. I feel like I’m running away from my troubles. Leaving the hubbub behind me with each step I take further into the countryside. Even though home is technically behind me, I feel like I’m moving toward my destination. I round a corner and rapeseed fields sweep out on either side, gently rolling over the countryside.

Lincolnshire is a county of space. Of big skies and farmland. Vast, yellow fields and the softly undulating hills of the Wolds.

My dad runs ahead of me. We come to a crossroads and I tell him we should head right. A couple of hundred metres along the road, I stop. I’m not sure why. I’m drawn to this spot for some reason. Across the road is a dilapidated barn and some abandoned outbuildings, thickly overgrown with nettles and cow parsley. A wooden gate, broken, leans tiredly against the structure. The rough driveway winds its way into a paddock beyond that’s cramped with years of growth. I cross.

“Paz! You alright?”

“Yeah… just…”

Just what? I’m not sure. Only that I want to know what happens on the other side of the barn. I’m a stickler for rules and I’m rubbish when I think I might be courting any kind of trouble so it’s confusing to me that I should be so drawn to trespass. My Dad trots back to my side.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. Not sure. I just like it here.”

The hamlet is not one I’ve spent any time in. There’s no shop or pub, maybe twenty or so houses clustered around a crossroads seems to be the beginning and the end of it. And yet I can’t fight the urge to venture off the path. I’m drawn to this place in a way I can’t explain, and my Dad definitely is not understanding my shift in focus. I glance up into his concerned face and the spell is broken.

“Yep. Let’s crack on.”

I spring back into action as if emerging from a daze, a dream, glancing back over my shoulder as we drift further away. I can’t help but feel that my destination is now behind me.

**

What is it about a home. A house. The place we create for ourselves and our families.

Do you believe in the energy of a space? And if you do, do you believe it comes from the place itself? Its’ past maybe? Or is it more about the energy of the people who fill it?

Is the vibe of a place rooted in the practical? Perhaps it’s the way you move through your day within a place- does the space hamper or enable you? Is it the right fit for the personalities within it?

Or perhaps the vibe of a space is more whimsical. Are we talking about a deeper emotional or spiritual connection to a place? Does our mind remember things on a subconscious level. Do some places speak to the deeper, inner-most parts of ourselves in a way we’d really have to tune into to properly understand.

I guess I always thought our house worked so well for us. I loved its history, the way each room sat higgledy-piggledy, not quite square to the rest. I loved the way you could bob your way through the rooms and pinpoint when that section of house was added- the low ceilings and thick stone walls of the older cottage in the back versus the grander, taller ceilings and vast windows of the Georgian frontage. The Victorian “filler” sections. The 1920s butcher’s shop and outbuildings.

I loved the way our family existed within its crumbly walls. It truly felt like we were the guardians of it for a time, this was our moment to exist as part of the long line of families that had already expanded within its walls, and I felt connected to that. In fact, Sam’s great grandmother delivered the last owner of the Butcher’s Shop in what was our bedroom. Sam’s dad used to come help out after school when he was a boy. The connection we had to the place was tangible and traceable. Sam researched the house painstakingly and will happily sit and tell you its story for hours if prompted.

When it was time to say goodbye, I cried.

When no one was looking, I even gave the old walls a hug and said “thank you” out loud. It was the house we brought our babies home to. The place we somehow bought on a shoestring whilst still at uni. It was derelict and complete with a squatter, and over 13 years we slowly, slowly brought it back to life. I adored its sun-filled little garden and shady, dappled courtyard and before we moved, I wondered how we’d ever build a place as magical.

Post-move, I’ve not thought about the cottage once. Brutal, but true.

There’s something about the new house that is just in true, deep alignment with our family. We exist within it in a way I feel we’ve always meant to.

It’s not about the house being bigger or grander (in fact, both the house and garage together are smaller than our old place.) It’s not even about the fact that we painstakingly reviewed each decision in accordance with what we learnt from living as a family in the last house to make sure it served us well, spatially.

It’s emotional.

We’ve lived here almost a month now- it’s far from finished, we’re ¾ of the way through the plastering and most of the walls are unpainted. Yesterday, I walked through the front door and received an overwhelming rush of emotion. The feeling is one I’ve not experienced before we moved to this house- it’s like the most immense wave of gratitude and happiness, but tempered with a deep, deep sense of calm. A calm that I can feel deep down in my core and right to my toes. It feels heavy. In a good way. Like the place both makes me feel elated and yet completely grounded and at ease.

It's deeper than anything practical. I just know it in my bones.

Eleven years ago I set out on the run I described above and was drawn to this very spot before we even had an inkling that we could build here. That was my first moment of connection to this place.

Now, when I drive down that same road I described above on my way home from work, I still feel like I’m leaving my troubles behind. Once a week, I’ll run home and I feel like I’m shedding the emotional weight of the day in a way I’ve never experienced before.

I’ve had many a commute in the past and never felt this way. It’s visceral. It’s overwhelming. A surge of emotion- relief mixed with happiness and all the while, that thick, gloopy calm. A calm like I’ve never experienced. It spreads over me like treacle, but I like it. It seeps into me and onto me and feels like I’m walking around in a weighted blanket, in a great way. I’ve never encountered this before.

The view out the back brings me to tears, yet it’s so simple. Just the grass and the tree at the end of the paddock and the sky. Seeing my children play here makes me weep, it’s all just so right. Watching Sam wander down the paths at dusk, checking his fruit trees, I could sob. With happiness or relief or connection or gratitude or overwhelm, who knows.

It’s got nothing to do with the physical house and everything to do with the spot we’re on. The feeling is something I’m genuinely at a loss to explain just yet. With the cottage it was about how we existed in that space- what we filled it with and what we made of it. With the new house it feels more primal. A deeper connection. Something that has always existed there that I’m just connecting (or reconnecting) with.

It feels like a process.

It’s an ache that I’m kneading out of my muscles. Or perhaps it’s more like shedding old skin (an old life) and letting it go so I can sink fully into this place we’ve somehow only just become the custodians of and yet have known forever.

I’ll revisit as I work it out.

In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend!

Paris