Before I moved into our present home ( now for 23 years), I never lived anywhere more than 3 years starting the day I was born. I am reminded that the second grade was particularly challenging in sitting in 5 different schools. This goes to say that our home was designed in what many fashionistas call “feng shui.” This was practical since my sales manager father was constantly being moved around.
Personally, I could make our home ‘feng shui correct’ if I opened the front and back doors and attached a wind tunnel machine on one end and let it rip! However, I wouldn’t like living in a house like that. When I walk into a home designed this way, it doesn’t speak to me, it tells me nothing about the people who live there … it feels empty.
By contrast, and although a bit over the top, the Weasley home in the Harry Potter series is much loved by the cast and crew who often eat their lunch there I am told. I really can’t blame them, the home seems so warm, comfortable and inviting, it practically says… “come in and stay a while.” Ben Franklin touched on this a bit in discussing many of the attributes associated with a comfortable home: “A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.” He also felt that a home should be added to in much the same way as we gain new experiences in our life.
I think all homes need a little of the Weasley magic….. otherwise it’s just a house.
Roger Freberg
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