Creature

I used to think being a homebody simply meant staying in. Small life, closed doors, nothing much happening. Just a creature in its safest domain.

It took me a while to understand it as a discipline instead; a means to chill in solitude, or on occasion with selective company, and a way to simply sort it all out.

Debris builds up in us the way it builds up in a hallway; slowly, then all at once, until the paths to understanding, clarity, resolution and success are too cluttered to walk. So when the road gets unclear, when I'm somewhere in despair, or peril, or hardship, or just plain angst, I clean a room.

Not as a metaphor first.

Literally.

I clear a counter. I make the bed. I wipe down the mirror, before I've worked out the calculus of what's actually wrong. And somewhere in the middle of it, the room gets quiet enough that I can hear myself again.

When the road is unclear, clean a room.

And I mean it as the whole philosophy, at the exact same time.

Work on the inside and the outside like that, together, long enough, and it stops being a coping mechanism and starts being a craft. I call that whole discovery Homebody.

Not a place. A practice.

I'm so infatuated with building home that it's now an aspiration to do it professionally. Interior design and set design; shaping rooms the way I once had to reshape myself. That's no longer a hobby. It's a way of life.

That practice has changed the way I listen. Lately I've found myself asking more and more people, men especially, one question.

What do you want to do with your life?

And every time, I feel it again; that immense, ignorant sensation from when the question was put to me. I smirk at the notion now. How naive I was.

I could have simply said, "I don't know. I haven't truly thought it through." But the truth is I was running from the question altogether.

Fast forward. That's what I'm watching now in my male peers. I find myself pulling transparency out of them, because the truth is we're intimidated by the moment of the question.

We expect the answer to arrive like a meteor; a streak you can watch from days away, growing, closing in, until the whole sky lights up. Not an epiphany; an approach. Oncoming clarity that never actually strikes.

So many of us experience that. We wait on it like the coming of God, as if it would invade the ordinary grind of our days and announce itself.

We await purpose.

What am I clearly supposed to do?

"I don't know."

That is a difficult pill to digest. A gut-wrenching enigma that drowns the body with lowness and defeat. Sure, anyone could relate, but the plight of a man is to know and lead. It's devastating to be stuck; to not be shown, and to not simply know.

My response is to simplify the problem. Break it down. What do you enjoy doing? If you could make a million dollars doing one thing, what would it be? I'll never be convinced that anyone truly can't answer that. Everyone has enjoyed SOMETHING at one point or another. So if there's no answer, one could reduce the equation to its simplest form.

Fear.

And just like that, a crisp fall of light caves into the floor. Fear steps into the center spotlight of this stage of life, and it takes its cue, the moment it has no more space to hide. The hidden villain in the most dramatic horror ever.

Fear is yellow.

Always yellow; for me at least.

Cloudy, static, a little nauseating. There's hardly any yellow in my home. I have never felt safe in it. The only yellow I allow is what seeps through the nearest window from the warmth of the sun, and even that dances with oranges, pinks and blues.

What color makes you feel safe?

Describe your room; your home. Build it. Fortify it. When it's perfect, create a door.

Why the door?

Because the thinnest line between fear and purpose never announces the danger on the other side. You stay in this treasure cove for comfort and peace; and then, one day, you stay because you're afraid to leave it. Afraid to deal with the subtle and aggressive terrors awaiting in the dim of your very doorway.

A haven has a door that opens both ways.

But building is just the beginning.

You will always have to clean. Strengthen your relationship with cleaning, for it is the only means to maintain your home, your peace, your ability to produce and create.

What houses your mind? Your spirit? Your body?

A pile of laundry was never meant to be an assemblage piece. Each article of clothing is art, designed specifically for its canvas: your actual body. The closet is the utility that houses even that.

Comfort, Peace, and Discipline.

Those are the duties of your home.

So the next time that question comes for you…

What do you want to do with your life?

…and the answer won't come…

clean a room. Then ask yourself again.