Juicy Houses

Terri Barnes, who writes "Spouse Calls" for Stars and Stripes overseas (http://blogs.stripes.com/blogs/spousecalls), asked me recently which issues in military life were being ignored in favor of stories about deployment. Terri and I talked about politically relevant stuff like geographic bachelors. The effect of PCS moves on kids. Spouse employment. We were so erudite I had to take an Imitrex and go lie down.

But this morning, I'm sitting by my pink peonies, sipping coffee from a blue and white china cup, and waiting for the mulch guy. I'm wondering why Terri and I hadn't tackled one of the most significant questions for military families: is your house juicy enough?

Yeah, that's what I'm calling a relevant issue: juicy houses. Talking about houses and military - unless you are talking tragic foreclosures or privatized housing scandals - makes it sound like I'm some kind of dysfunctional hausfrau. Sounds like I'm insisting that we military spouses really must watch less "Dancing With the Stars" and more "Renovation Nation."

I don't mean that at all.

What I mean is that my husband deploys (that word again!) in the fall. What I mean is that I'm in my backyard counting exactly how many days I have before he starts the pipeline again. What I mean is that instead of my home being made home the moment he walks through the door at night, it will be just me and the boys again. These four walls. These maple trees. These peonies dying back into the ground. I know I'm going to need a really juicy house to get me through all that.

Which sounds so Splenda, I know. But it is true. Military folks need juicy houses to prop up their lives. Or that's what Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan told me. He is the founder of and author of Apartment Therapy. The guy is really into design (check his website www.ApartmentTherapy.com), but that isn't what interested me about him. In the whole shelter mag world, Gillingham-Ryan seemed like one of the few who understood that the purpose of a house wasn't to impress people. How the house looked was important, but how the house WORKED was key. "My clients find that the more they create healthy home rhythm, the more that supports their life."

Military life can always use a little more support. So I asked Gillingham-Ryan what he meant by "healthy home rhythm." Marimbas? Bongos? Pickle buckets?

Not quite. Instead he was talking about rhythms that cost no money like nightly family dinners. Enforced bedtimes. Quiet. Organization. Cleanliness. Completed repairs. Rooms set up around the activities you want to accomplish there. Gillingham-Ryan called this a "juicy" home - one that is being used a lot.

So often our military life means that we live in a place like birds, as if we have alighted there; as if home was a swaying branch, a fluttering twig. We live as if we could shake a home off and build another elsewhere. And when our service member is deployed, so often we avoid home, flitting away from empty rooms and empty chairs.

That may feel natural. But it isn't juicy. It doesn't fill us up. It isn't the life we military families deserve. I know that for Brad and I, this spring we need to pump up the juice of our family. This is the time we will indulge in the healthy rhythms of home. We will spend the weekend spreading all that mulch, I know. Brad is sure to do T-bones on the grill. I'll cut peonies for the table and we will sit on the deck talking long into the evening.

"Your home is your second skin," says Gillingham-Ryan. "It's a place we can have small victories." I know that. And so do you. Because those memories of small victories are the very things that keep our lives so sweet, even from far, far away.

Jacey Eckhart is a military/life consultant based in Washington DC. She is the author of The Homefront Club: The Hardheaded Woman's Guide to Raising a Military Family" and the voice behind "These Boots." Check out more columns and her speaking schedule at www.jaceyeckhart.com. Write her at Jacey at jaceyeckhart.com