Home is Where I Keep My Leftovers

They always say home is where the heart is. But what makes the heart go and then stay somewhere? Family and friends, duh, but my family and friends are thousands of miles away. Living here alone in a rural African village, I’ve discovered the most basic requirements for making a home, in the emotional sense of the word. I, very generously, will share with you this invaluable insight.

The three main ingredients are:
1. Pets

2. A couch

3. Leftovers

There you have, all you need to create a home. Now let’s look at them in more detail.

1. Pets. As you all know by now, my little four-legged African family include my dog, Doug (also pronounced Dog, Duga, Duh, Douglas, Dugalas), and my cat, Kitty. Doug and Kitty. I’ve learned from them that human interaction really isn’t all that necessary to my happiness. I just need dopey Doug around to do dumb stuff and make me laugh and sweet Kitty to cuddle (and control the mice). I get all my companionship needs from Doug, who not only follows me to school, but then follows me from one end of the chalkboard to the other. He’s also my running buddy and standup comedian. Kitty takes care of all the physical contact and emotional support. She’s always waiting at the door for Doug and me to come home from school with a hug and meow to ask us about our day. This probably sounds crazy and you’re probably wondering if I’ve prematurely turned into an old spinster hermit who talks to walls and knits animals hats. But really, in the absence of legitimate human friends in my village all my interactive needs are met by these two little dummies. We have our conflicts, like when Doug shattered my window last week by trying to jump through it, and we have our hallmark cards, like when all three of us are doing Downward Dog at the same time, trying to all fit on the same yoga mat. Their furry little faces not only capture my heart, but securely anchor it in this house.

Doug: "Screw this."

 

Kitty, chowing down hard





Me and Kitty on Couch



2. A couch. I have a theory that you can live pretty much anywhere for any amount of time if you just have somewhere comfy to sit. In fact, I told this to my friend Meredith before she ET’ed (early terminated). I’m still convinced she would have stayed if she just invested in a comfy chair. I have a comfy fold-up camping chair that my parents sent me and I used to use the extra bed as a pseudo couch. But I’ve been dreaming of a real couch for a long time, especially because my family is coming to visit in a few weeks and I have only one comfy chair for them to share. Haha! I just imagined all three of them piling on top of my little camping chair. So recently I found a legit carpenter and commissioned a sofa. He charged an immense amount of money (about 150USD, but who can put a price on a home?), which I later found out he overcharged me like whoa. But it is definitely a couch. It’s an overstuffed two-seater with armrests at the perfect height to use as a pillow for my new routine afternoon naps. The carpenter even upholstered it in a soft brown so it wouldn’t look dirty, because he knew Doug wouldn’t be able to resist curling up on it too. Doug, in fact, couldn’t resist and quickly deposited a layer of Doug hair all over it. After weeks of screaming at him to get off of the human furniture, I eventually caved and bought him his own sofa cushion to use as a Douggie bed, which he now guards fiercely. I must say, since the most recent and final installment to my African family, Couch, my house feels pretty complete. I can’t wait to get home after school and curl up on Couch with my kitten and my book and Doug sprawled out on the floor. I can put my feet up and lean back into cushions and sink down into comfort. I know that I am accepted in this space I have created and I belong on this couch I bought for too much money. It’s that quintessential feeling of “I am home”.

3. Leftovers. This one kind of hit me the other night when I was sitting down on Couch with a bowl of reheated homemade egg drop soup. I’d never noticed before, but there’s something about eating leftovers from a meal you cooked yourself in your own kitchen that makes it all feel entirely yours. Firstly, the first time you cooked it, you were in a place you know better than anyone else, your kitchen. In any other kitchen in the world you’d probably have to stop at some point to ask “where do you keep your spoons?”

Not in your own kitchen. In your own kitchen, you don’t even have to look up from the stove to end up with a spoon in your hand. You can navigate your pantry (if you’ve cleaned it recently) in the dark. You can throw something into the trash can with the most efficient of movements. Secondly, when you look into your originally unfinished meal you can confidently think “hell, I’ll just finish it later”, and you know it’ll be there. That way, you can also set yourself up for being too lazy or too tired to cook again later, which is great! Planned laziness, the ultimate comfort. Also, it feels much more safe and comfortable pulling leftovers out of your own fridge (not that I have a fridge here, I don’t), which kind of goes back to knowing your own kitchen better than anyone else’s. There’s something kind of uneasy about eating your leftovers stored in someone else’s fridge. It’s kind of like leaving your toothbrush on the side of a friend’s sink, you take extra care that the head of the toothbrush doesn’t touch the surface (because who know the last time it was cleaned) and that it’s well out of the way. There’s nothing like the guilt of borrowing too much of someone else’s space. Thirdly, they’re your leftovers. You knew they would be there, you planned for them to be there, all you have to do is stick them back on the stove and finish what you started. You know how when you ask someone if you can kill their leftovers and when they let you and you eat them it kind of feels like stealing? It’s not very satisfying, you didn’t earn them. It’s second hand food. Leftovers are so good because they are like a reminder of the original meal. Without the original meal the leftovers are just a grimy shadow of what could have been. And also, who leaves food sitting around your kitchen but you? You don’t leave unfinished food in a kitchen that you’re responsible for and then go out and never return. You would only reasonably leave unfinished food out if that kitchen is somewhere you’d come back to and unselfconsciously pick the spoon up and resume consumption in your pajamas on a Couch. And where else can you do that except your own house, a place you feel so comfortable and without a second thought would let the dog lick the bowl, because emotionally, it’s your home.