The house: our second skin.

There are people who live in the same house all their lives; they know by heart all the hinges, the scratched paint, and the wood weaknesses. There are others that change house regularly: living here today and there tomorrow and hardly take the time to know the house they inhabit.

There are people who love to stay in their homes, savoring every small detail, and there are others who cannot stand being at home. They wake up in the morning and their first thought is about going out, and when they come to the end of the day it is simply to sleep.

The relationship with the house reveals a great deal about our personality! It might be thought that extroverts like to live away from home, and introverts like to stay home. But it is not necessarily so: the house is a kind of cocoon, the place for personal transformation and stillness. The house is a place to rest, to replenish energies, to quiet the mind in search of balance, to find serenity, to listen to the voice that whispers new ways and warns against the dangers. The house is our second skin! That’s why it is this so difficult to live in a house: it is where we reveal ourselves without any kind of defenses. It’s where we walk barefoot, in pajamas covering our warm skin, with disheveled hair, drinking a glass a wine on a much bigger glass than your hand, curled up on the couch like a cat, with our heads tilted at an odd angle to read the legends of a Polish film… The house is where we undress our body and soul.

It doesn’t matter whether the house is temporary or not, the important thing is to turn it into “our” place while we are there. So, in our house we should only allow people we like, people we love, people that make us feel good, people that take us plants and affection to wish us good luck, people to take us soup when we have the flu!

It doesn’t matter whether the house is large or small, whether it is sophisticated or simple. It matters that it has a certain order and the objects and clothes are tidy, because it is that order that makes the houses our own.

You don’t have to enjoy being at home, but it is fundamental to know how to stay at home. This allows us to know who we are; to take a moment to rethink ourselves, to recognize changes and desires, to expose weaknesses, to rest the body of daily battles. Any warrior knows when it's time to fight and when it’s time to be quiet, when it's time to run and when it’s time to stop running and when it is time to go to battle and when it’s time to go back home! Any warrior knows that his home is a safe place to rest and grow stronger!