Let Me Tell You This About That

Home-what is it for you?

• Hess and Delbert • Season 2 • Episode 54

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Home—What is it for you?

Delbert and Hess join together for their 54th podcast and talk about “home”.  What is it?—it’s not always a structure, it’s a place where your heart is.  A place where you belong, where you connect.  Delbert is taking a book from her childhood today to her niece’s baby shower, We Were Tired of Living in the House, by Liesel Moak Skorpen.  Four small children, a dog, and a cat move into a tree, pond, cave and seashore, but something unusual happens to make them move on to the next place, and finally home.  Home is where we enrich ourselves, recharge, and go out into the world.  Home is  Hess’s horse, Speedy, when she is riding him up the big hill. Home is the gathering around the table. Home is the memories that we take with us when we sell our house. Think about it.  What makes “home” for you?  Listen, like, subscribe and pass it on!   Peace and Love!

I am still collecting for my friend José'. In January he was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. After two regiments of chemo, its not good. The doctor has given him 11 months, But José is not going to listen to that! José is optimistic and is living his best life on the farm with his family.
https://gofund.me/e6f61999

In addition to being a podcast host, Hess is also an LCSW--if you'd like to learn more about her work as a therapist, check it out at www.jessicabollinger.com

One of her mission's is for all of our lights to shine--when we see each other and allow ourself to be seen--and we can say to the person in front of us, There You Are! the world will be an amazing place!

Delbert is a top realtor in Louisville, KY, and you can find her at Kentucky Select Properties She will help you find your home, and also help you get the most equity when you sell your house.

Her philanthropic work to continue her sister Carole and niece Meghan is Carole's Kitchen. Blessings in a Backpack helps feed the many hungry students in our schools. The instagram account is: https://www.instagram.com/caroleskitchen.nonprofit?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw=...

Hess:

Hey, this is Hess and you have tuned in to, let me tell you this about that, and Delbert, I am not in the white chair looking out at the farm. I'm up in Schoenberg. I think that's the way you pronounce it. Chicago, about 24 miles from downtown Chicago at a conference at my Imago Getting the Love You Want conference. What's it like down there in Louisville today?

Delbert:

Hey Hess. Hey everybody. I am Delbert as always, on my big green couch looking out the picture window. It's beautiful. It's a little overcast today. I think we're gonna get a little rain this afternoon, but the the leaves are starting to change. My neighbor's big, beautiful maple tree has started to turn a beautiful orangy red. It's gorgeous. And I love them'cause they leave their Christmas lights up as long as I do and it's on that big, beautiful tree. So that's about all I know.

Hess:

I love that. I love that. Yeah, and we've had some frosty mornings down there in Kentucky. The frost has been on the pumpkin.

Delbert:

It has. And I, my mums are about the only thing I have outside, except I've got this one little gardenia plant that I'm trying to get to bloom. And so I brought that in. But the mums they like it. They're like, burn. It's fall. We're here.

Hess:

They like it. They like it. So Delbert, something that was resonating with me. I came up here on Thursday. I am, this is a work that I was trained in 1999. It's called, it's that Imago work, the Dialogue work. If you've listened to past podcasts about being able to cross the bridge in the other person's world, and I found out I'm not the only Imago therapist now in Kentucky. I met a gal that is in Wilmore. And she's there. Her husband's getting a doctorate there at at Asbury College. So anyway, I used to, in the first few days of this work, of this conference up here, I said, yeah, I'm Jesse Bollinger and the only Imago therapist in Kentucky. I was lying, because. Yeah. Being in this, being with this affiliation when I go to a conference, Delbert. I'm working with other people. You're doing different breakout sessions and you're doing dyads. A dyad is where you're working with one or two other people and you find you, you get to know people so well, and it's like my homeboys, it's it feels so good to be around. My clan, my group. I, it just, and so it feels like home. So I, I said Delbert. I'd like to talk more about that this morning. What home is or what constitutes home what is home for you?

Delbert:

I love that is what you sent me because I was thinking the same thing. I had we're get doing a shower for my niece, Lizzie. And we're supposed to bring a favorite childhood book and I had just ordered this book that was our favorite growing up in the Watson House. We were tired of living in a house, which is an ironic book title for. A builder's family, but it's just the cutest little story written in 1968. And so I, I think I remember reading this to my younger siblings. Liesel Moak Skorpen wrote this and the. Illustrations by Doris Burns are adorable if you can find this book. But these little kids, they get tired of living in a house. They're, they've scribbled on the walls and the plants are overturned and phones off the hook, and there's a kite and a light fixture. And their parents look pretty sick of them too. And so these four kits, they pack up their bag with sweaters and socks and scarves and mittens. And they head out and they live in all these different places out in nature. They live in a tree house. They live, they build a raft and live on a pond. They live down by the sea and they live in a cave until the bears move in. And every time they lose a little, a clothing item and they pick up an item from nature, a little frog from the pond, scarlet leaves and gold. Seashells and at the end, of course, like we all do, they end up back home, which is the best part. And their parents' arms are outstretched, it's just a perfect story about adventure, how we all long for adventure but then we long for home. And so I knew we were gonna talk about this in a, I posted a picture of my house on Spring Crest Drive that my dad and uncle and grandfather Bill and, said what? Tell me what you think. What is home for you? And of course, lots of our friends from 1960 76 answered, and a couple of my cousins answered. And of course one of my cousins said, beautiful chaos. Love that. Love, beautiful chaos. And then. Karen Graves said, home is where your heart is. It's family, friends, not a specific location. It's love and belonging.

Hess:

Yes. Yes.

Delbert:

like home says Cynthia Pierce. Then Anthony, my cousin, says, warmth, security, love. And Mary Denny says, love and security. So it is, it's all those things. And I was thinking about this little family that moves everywhere for me, home can be anywhere. It can be anywhere my children and grandchildren are, or wherever my friends are. It can be at the beach, it could be out on the lake. It's where you feel love, belonging, and security. And gosh, don't we all don't. We all deserve that.

Hess:

Yeah, so I, yeah, I was thinking Delbert, you and I both, we grew up in the same house our whole life and so we never moved while I was growing up. My mom moved after she remarried, she built another house. And then I moved maybe five times when I was in college. And now I've been on the farm for 40 years. So I've been fortunate. To not have to move furniture or clothes or any, very often at all. And so home me is not just someplace I've been a long time. That doesn't really constitute it. It's a place. That feels comfortable, that has a comfortable bed that, that I've got the kitchen and food in the fridge to fix. It's a place where I can invite friends. It's a place where family gathers. a place where I belong and I don't have to change anything to fit in that, that, that's home to me.

Delbert:

That's beautiful. I love that. When I at work, I deal with people who are packing up their clothing and their belongings, and it's one of the most stressful things that you can do is move. It's right up there with death and job loss and divorce and all those things. Right underneath there is moving It's because of the. Attachment of the feelings that we have that are associated with home and one thing that I always try to tell people, like every memory, every event, everything that's tied to this house, you have to just tell yourself, you can pack this with you when you go. You're not leaving it behind and really makes it easier to pick up and go. Because people associate and attach their emotions to physical things, Which really is it's very normal. And it, and I felt like when we sold the house on Spring Crest Drive for a long time, that was still my house. Even though I was so happy that a young family had moved in and was making it their own, I was so happy it was going to a family. And and I don't feel I. I remember thinking when I posted that picture that was a place where I had all these beautiful memories, but it wasn't mine anymore. And that's, it's a good feeling to let that go.

Hess:

Yeah. As you say, let the water run through the pipes again. That's the blood vessels, like

Delbert:

And the air coming in and out the door. You don't want a house to be empty. You want, you want its lungs to have air circulating. You want laughter in it, you want the lights on, and like you said, the water running through the pipes, it's like our vein. And you want that beautiful house to have life. So that's part of it. That is all part of it. And photographs and memories, you take all those with you, just like the little kids took their scarlet leaves and gold and their frog and, you take all that with you when you go and the what's in your heart is what remains in your memory.

Hess:

Yeah, just Delbert, I left the structure of my home. At Old Frankfort Pike in, in Lexington to come up here to Chicago. And then when I land here and I'm rooming with a good friend Cheryl from New York City, and I love being in her presence. And then just seeing my old seeing my Imago friends and making new Imago friends that it feels like home. And that's a home, that connection, that friendship, that warmth dancing last night at the dinner dance together and it's just so beautiful. It's people, it's have so much relational maturity.'cause this is the work that we do. So everybody is on the dance floor. Nobody's drunk. Everybody's on the dance floor dancing and we're all laughing and clapping for each other. It's such a good, healthy group of people I just feel so comfortable with. Yeah, so fun. And then Delbert let me tell you this about that is when my friends from Cincinnati, Bonnie and Darcy, and you know them.

Delbert:

Yes. Love them.

Hess:

I gave them hugs for you.

Delbert:

Thank you.

Hess:

we landed at O'Hare about 30 minutes apart. So I went down to their terminal on the tram and met them at their luggage luggage. Carousel and we caught a Uber to the hotel, got our rooms, threw our bags in our rooms, and then we caught a shuttle to the train station and then took the train on into Chicago and walked around Chicago all afternoon on Thursday, and that was a blast. Wonderful time. And we went to a really cool place. Jane Adams created this settlement in the early 19 hundreds called the Hall House Settlement. And there were like 16 buildings in this, and it was in a very highly. Ethnic neighborhood with Italians, Polish, Irish Greek all these different people and cultures that lived around there. And she was like the original social worker. She helped with child labor, she helped with education, she helped with food. She helped everybody bring their own crafts and arts and what they were good at. and they lived and a lot of'em lived there in that settlement. And we visited that and that was just a really cool place.'cause when I was in social work school, we just heard, I, she, she was like the heroine of of social work. And so we got to see that. And then I, look, it's about time for dinner. I look at search food nearby and we're right in the Italian district of Chicago. And there was a place that got some good reviews and, we went to that place and we met Joe, the third generation. Shake hands with him. What should we order? We get a table out on an enclosed patio where we can see the street. we just see keep, we keep seeing cars pull up. The place is packed when we're leaving, it was a Thursday night. It was the neighborhood, Italian joint wasn't very expensive. And just to see this place flourish. And he said that his daughter, Darci had be taking it over from him to carry it forward, a home place to

Delbert:

home. I was just gonna say, yeah.

Hess:

Uhhuh. Uhhuh.

Delbert:

And I feel like the spiritual ingredient of that right Is the sense of belonging and the sense of peace and just love. That food provides,

Hess:

yeah.

Delbert:

just another component of home and yeah. And that he's the hospitality that he extends

Hess:

Oh yeah.

Delbert:

on his whole family. That's beautiful. I love that.

Hess:

was a sign, there was a sign for valet parking, and I'm just seeing cars just like double parked, a whole line of cars parked in the middle of the street because that was part of their valet because they don't have a parking lot to go to. But that Jane Adams, Delbert, how she helped these these immigrants that came from other countries. She helped them with. With their pottery or their weaving and so forth. Some of the kids that came here with their parents, they didn't realize how talented the, their parents were and that they were actually artisans with their craft that they were bringing from their country. So Jane was able to like, highlight that and to, for the kids to feel really good about what they, what their parents brought. From the other country. So creating this home of where they feel like they belong and to this multicultural place is so cool.

Delbert:

And they can express themselves creatively. That's another part of home. I always loved encouraging my kids and what they were talented in and letting them, experiment with art and with, music and theater they were, and books. They were really into all of that. And I think that is such a safe space to create especially for. People who are from all different places around the world, how fantastic is that? She brought that all together and just another divine part of home creativity and expression.

Hess:

Yes. Home is your table decorated. Delbert

Delbert:

oh yeah.

Hess:

around

Delbert:

Exactly. Sitting around the table talking, sharing. Today, we're gonna have that shower for Lizzie. I gotta make 50 sandwiches when I get off here. I'm in charge of sandwiches. And that'll be an expression of love and home then I'm doing for my sweet little Lizzie.

Hess:

You gonna cut the crust off Delbert, or you leave it on.

Delbert:

I'll tell you what I did. I got the Hawaiian rolls, I'm just gonna cut'em clear across the middle and then,

Hess:

gotcha.

Delbert:

Yeah. Clear across the middle.

Hess:

that makes me laugh because after a lot of a lot of baguettes in France.

Delbert:

yeah.

Hess:

One thing that I laughed about that Mary said, she was just joking'cause the bread really was fabulous there. But some of it's crunchy and makes the roof of your mouth raw. But she said, I can't wait for some Hawaiian bread at home from Kroger's.

Delbert:

They're good. Those little sweet rolls. Yeah. So

Hess:

yeah.

Delbert:

I got the sweet ones for the ham and Swiss, and I got the butter for the Turkey. So anyway, it'll be good. It'll be fantastic. They gave me something easy that doesn't require a lot of cooking skills and we're gonna have just a fantastic, beautiful day with family and that,

Hess:

that's home.

Delbert:

it's home baby.

Hess:

Yeah. Y'all think about what home is for you all how you build home, how you create home, what different things mean home.

Delbert:

In your community and then the first Catholic Saints from from America's, from Chicago, mother Cabrini. And she she did a lot of work with homeless people in Chicago. You're there.

Hess:

Wow,

Delbert:

Yeah. Yeah. So

Hess:

Delbert.

Delbert:

ness, what are you, what is the purpose of your Imago visit?

Hess:

The theme is home Sweet, home, Imago, and, the purpose is to connect, to learn more, to do work together. Harville Hendrix, the founder of Imago that wrote, getting the Love You Want, he spoke

Delbert:

Oh.

Hess:

his ideas, and we had Dick Schwartz here as a keynote speaker. He's the founder of Internal Family System Theory and. That's a really cool type of therapy, Delbert.'cause we have these different child parts that kind of take over to protect us to, and parts that aren't supposed to be long, and stuff like that. It's really cool stuff excuse me, in our healing and there's a. There's a branch of that's showing up how that can also be worked with the Imago Couplehood process. So that was discussed and he we saw Dick work with a couple and do some work with them, a live demonstration, which was cool. And, also one thing we did yesterday, Delbert, there were about six people up front and they each read a little bit, just a short little thing about what home is for them. And I'd like to just run over some of those things that be okay. A place we build being heard and validated building home within ourselves, chosen, coexisting. Living a life that matters. Home is the space between I and thou being seen, truly seen. It's not a building, it's a moment. Wow. That's kinda like what you're saying. Even if you move, you take those moments with you.

Delbert:

Exactly. I loved that. Building it inside yourself, so really you're carrying it with you wherever you go. And that's the point of, whether you're on the beach. At the lake in the mountains. Your heart, the home that you've built inside yourself is there. I love that. That's so good. That's so good.

Hess:

And one, one gal had special needs children. And she says, our home is safety, love, and beautiful chaos. One, one boy said he was an immigrant when he came. He was eight years old. As an immigrant. They lived a lot of different places. Creating a home, a chosen family, a space that's full of love, stepping in, that you feel like you're in loving care. One mom wrote about how her child was able to say what is home for them. What they feel comfortable with and what they wanna be called like, like our, our who we are as a gender can feel at home to us. So that was an eyeopening thing for this mom, she said, and it's always expanding. non, she says non-binary is one facet of a diamond. is a home because everyone is accepted. Diversity is the rule, not the exception. That was a beautiful story.

Delbert:

Yes. Love that.

Hess:

Yeah. Home is sitting on my horse speedy. he's my horse and he is comfortable and I know what it feels like to be on top of Speedy. It's

Delbert:

You, yes. You're so connected to your animals on the farm. I love that. And you're their home.

Hess:

Yeah. is your car now, but what's the name for your car?

Delbert:

Oh, black beauty.

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

Because I live in it so much when I'm working. For sure. I love that. I love all that and I love that you're there like revitalizing, recharging yourself.

Hess:

Yeah, it is a recharge. Home is, as we've spoken, Delbert, a place where you can make your linguine clams and watch ugly Betty and recharge. That's home.

Delbert:

Exactly. It's comfort, it's love it's where you can also continue to develop that home inside yourself with personal growth and spirituality.

Hess:

And then the work that you need to do, or the purpose that you can have, or that's where you can go from to go do those things.

Delbert:

Exactly where you go and you build yourself even better and create a life that means something and home is where it all starts, right? Hey pods, we'd love to hear what home means to you, how you build your home within yourself and within the structure.

Hess:

Yep.

Delbert:

We'd love to hear it so you can you go ahead?

Hess:

there. There's a lot of different aspects of home and what comes up for you all in that. I love that. Give us a comment. Give us a give us a share. You're really important to us. And Delbert. is like the 54th pod and so we're in our second season.

Delbert:

Second year, heading into our second year. We love it. Thank you to everybody that listens, and if you have a topic that you want us to cover I love this one. Both of our dads are builders and I love this topic in particular because of how we grew up and how important our families were to us and.

Hess:

Yeah, our dads built a lot of houses, and they became homes,

Delbert:

Think about that for a second.

Hess:

We love you all. Peace and love.

Delbert:

We love you friends.