“Home is where you lay your head”

“Home is where you hang your hat.”

These two aphorisms suggest that home is simply 1) a place to sleep and rest, and 2) a place to take off and store your outer gear. As such, home is just a practical thing, and a minimal thing: it is a bed – no, not even. Just a pillow. And a hook.

You can lay your head almost anywhere. Back when school was still in person, I made frequent use of MIT’s Women’s Lounge, which is a room on campus with a number of sofas, a kitchenette, and a bathroom complete with shower stalls. Every time I would go inside, there would be at least one person sleeping on a couch, no matter the time of day. Whenever I went first thing in the morning to drop off my lunch in the shared refrigerator, I would see one or two people fast asleep and I would wonder – is this where they slept all night? (I never found out, but most likely they were just catching rest after a long night in lab). I suppose you could get by living out of the Women’s Lounge. It has everything you need to live and to function fully: a place to lie down and sleep, facilities to wash up, and even a place to store and prepare your food. But, the one thing it’s missing is a place to “hang your hat.” Everyone has belongings they need to keep somewhere. A home must offer you a place to store your clothes, your toothbrush, and your most cherished belongings.

The closet or storage room is an easily overlooked element of the home. It is not a space you inhabit or spend time in (besides the odd exceptions, such as my college dorm room closet where I would quietly eat my breakfast while my roommate slept). It is a space for your belongings, not for yourself. It is not a space to decorate or make beautiful, but a place to hide the ugly so that the rest of your home can be beautiful. It is nothing but utilitarian. Closed up, hidden, probably somewhat messy and cluttered.

Its size becomes a limiting factor for the amount of stuff you can have. My small closet rack is filled with jackets and sweaters. When my mother offered me one of her old sweaters, I turned it down because I do not have room for a single sweater more. Perhaps I would have accepted it had I more space for sweater storage. Relatedly, in my hallway there is a tiny utility closet my roommates and I keep our cleaning supplies. I would like to get a new vacuum, but the lack of space to store it influences the type of vacuum I can get. Not a bulky upright, but a slender stick vacuum that takes up minimal space.

Closets and storage spaces are not only utilitarian. We use them, yes, to store utilitarian things; but we also use them to store things we keep near and dear, whether they be books, crafts, photographs, old letters, clothes, trinkets, or souvenirs. Things that we couldn’t imagine living without, things that make us who we are. I often wonder, such as during my (now only in the past) early morning entries to the Women’s lounge: how do people without their own storage space manage? What do they do with their precious belongings? In a podcast mini-series called “According to Need,” this question is raised in one of the several stories on homelessness that reporter Katie Mingle brings to light. In one episode, Mingle spends time with residents of a homeless encampment by the Interstate in Berkley[i]. The California Department of Transportation goes every couple of weeks to clear the area, which means that each time this happens, the 70 or so people who live there have to dismantle their tents, gather up their things, and hide away until the CalTrans people leave. One of these times, one resident, K.C., was not there when CalTrans came, and her bed and her belongings were swept up and thrown into a dump truck. Her tent and mattress were lost, but she later managed to salvage her most precious items: her books and her beads (she had a passion for making jewelry). She did not mind so much that her bed was gone – she could eventually find a new one – as long as she did not lose the things that gave her comfort and formed part of her identity.

Relatedly, recent news cycles in Toronto have chronicled the story of a carpenter in Toronto that has been making and distributing tiny shelters throughout the city to those without a permanent home. While far from ideal, these little plywood boxes have made a significant difference in the lives of many people. Tiny shelter recipients have expressed gratitude for the protection and stability these structures have introduced to their lives. In one testimonial, a resident describes a newfound sense of comfort and liberty from the ability to lock his belongings in his shelter and move about freely, not having to carry all of his things with him all the time and knowing they are tucked safely away[ii]. Having one’s own storage space, thus, is an important part of having a stable life.

The possession of a space to store one’s belongings is something that we take for granted. Storage space is always a given – every bedroom comes with its own closet, and every house or apartment has at least one hall closet. The ability to store our precious belongings, is that what makes home, home? Certainly, home must first provide a place to lay one’s head, but just as importantly, it must provide a place to hang one’s hat and everything else.

[i] Mingle, Katie. Dec. 15, 2020. “According To Need: Episode 5: Housing Finally.” Podcast Audio. 99% Invisible. Radiotopia. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/according-to-need-chapter-5-housing-finally/

[ii] Seivwright, Khaleel, “Tiny Shelter Testimonials” Toronto Tiny Shelters. Jan 24, 2021, Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdbmLKaGleg&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=TorontoTinyShelters

[If you’re interested in supporting the Toronto Tiny Shelters initiative, which is currently in danger of being banned by the City, visit https://linktr.ee/torontotinyshelters/ to sign a petition and/or donate to the cause.]

home for things

The Paper

Beyond an Exercise