Make this Place Your Home

Looking down from my United Airlines window shortly after takeoff from Burlington I’m able to discern Rosslyn’s waterfront and backland, recognizable despite distortion caused by the crazed, milky portal bless. My eye-in-the-sky perspective of Essex, New York (and our Adirondack Coast “home sweet home”) tickled a lyric into my mind, and before I knew it I was humming Phillip Phillips’ catchy tune “Home”. With belated apologies to the stranger seated beside me, I hummed most of the lyrics, but it was impossible not to voice the refrain: “‘Cause I’m gonna make this place your home…”

This song is catchy. An earworm. And for me it’s one of many that has woven its way into my subconscious because it resonates with our Rosslyn relationship.

Hold on to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave (wave) is stringing us along
Just know you’re not alone
‘Cause I’m gonna make this place your home

Settle down, it’ll all be clear
Don’t pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble, it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone
‘Cause I’m gonna make this place your home

(Source: Phillip Phillips, “Home”, by Drew Pearson and Greg Holden)

That’s the gist, although it does revisit those lyrics to prolongue the catchy tune. It’s that last line that gets me. “I’m gonna make this place your home”.

I recently talked to part of our dynamic crew working on the icehouse rehab about the circumstances — at least a couple of the most significant circumstances — that contributed to our decision to purchase Rosslyn back in 2006. For now let’s just say that it was an inflection point at a singularly challenging time for us. It was an “unfamiliar road” with troubles aplenty dragging us down. And, in many respects, the challenges continued, some worsening, during the first couple of years after — and in no small part because of — purchasing Rosslyn. But this pledge (mine to Susan, and Susan’s to me) to persevere in order to “make this place your home” became our mantra. And it worked!

“Settle down,” the lyrics urge, as if homemaking (I prefer “homing” to homemaking for reasons explained elsewhere) ensures analgesia in troubled times. Yes, the trouble “might drag you down” but “you’re not alone”. Together we could fend off the demons. Together we would make Rosslyn our sanctuary.

Phillips first performed the song [“Home”] on the [American Idol] season’s final performance night on May 22, 2012, and then again on the finale after he was declared the winner. (Source: Wikipedia)

Almost six years out of sync with our purchase of Rosslyn, we unfortunately weren’t able to crank up Phillips’ song to boost our morale in times of need. But when the song began to blanket the airwaves a few years after we finally completed most of the most significant work on the house and boathouse, it instantly felt familiar. It conjured the tribulations we’d navigated as well as the strength we’d found — and rely upon to this day — in our union.

As we explore what life might look like after Rosslyn — an inevitable if not imminent consideration — we contemplate what it will take to transform a new property into our sanctuary. But this time we understand home and homeness a little bit differently. To “make this place your home” we simply need to be together. Coming home is returning to my bride after time apart (as I did last night after a week away.)