Mapping your space

Moving within and without your home and heart’s borders

Counting my steps, I measure that the exterior of our home is eight paces wide, from the end of next door’s wall to where our front path begins. There are six steps up to the front door; 10 if you count stepping through the gateposts and the soft-shoe shuffle on the threshold as I search for my keys. The lobby is crossed in a left-right two-step. The hallway presents options – three paces to reach the living room door; a further seven steps to arrive at the entrance to the kitchen; a total of 17 steps from front door to the French doors in my study at the back of the house. 

Back in the 16th century, before maps defined borders and the enclosures claimed what was common ground for the enrichment of landowners, communities would ‘beat the bounds’ of their parish to mark its edges and extremities. Boys and elders would march the margins of the place they called home, singing songs, saying sermons and beating supple willow switches against the landmarks that indicated where one parish ended and the next began.

It sounds bawdy and boisterous; beer was drunk and flags were waved. But there was a dark and dangerous side to the ceremony. Beating the bounds protected land rights and defended the earth from encroaching neighbours. It was about remembering and responsibility. Without maps to refer to, it was the collective knowledge of the community that marked the invisible, intangible division between ‘ours’ and ‘theirs’ – the tree that stood within the parish or without; the boulder sitting stolidly at the crossing point between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

This folk memory was hard won; coerced into the consciousness of the next generation through tests and trials. It was thought that penalty and punishment, when associated with a specific place, would prove unforgettable. Children would have their heads dunked into the water of a stream; waterboarding as a waymarker. They would be told to race along a boundary wall until they fell among the stones; scratches and pain as a perennial signpost. Sometimes the memories and associations would be pleasant ones – picnics, games and parties. Still, the mind became the map while the body kept the score. 

I think about this ancient beating of the bounds as I walk around my own home, my family’s territory.

There are 12 stairs to the half-landing where I can look out of the window over the garden, with its flint walls holding the space (I often spot a fox walking along them; its bushy tail beating the bounds for me). I can walk the perimeter of my shared bed, crossing the invisible intersection of ‘his side’ and mine. Another floor leads to the loft conversion; my son’s fiefdom, which I enter only rarely. 

I pace and ponder the memories, both joyful and sad, held within the circumference of this home and others I have shared. The landing, a liminal space between rooms, where I gave birth to my youngest child. The walk to the window, back, check again, when our son took his first solo trip to the corner shop – out there – and we tried to trust that he would cross the road safely. The study (three steps across to the bookcase, four steps to the desk) that is my own world within our shared universe.

I feel so fortunate that I have had homes to shelter me and make me feel safe. I suddenly realise that the places I’ve been happiest have had steps up to them – the maisonette I spent my teenage years, my first flat with my husband, our home now, with its raised ground floor. And I remember the fear a much younger me felt stepping into the charged and static atmosphere of another home, and the wings-on-our-heels freedom when we left it, shutting the door on that part of our lives forever. There were no steps up to that house; my reluctant footsteps reached it too soon from the pavement outside.

I read Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s instructions for mindful walking and think that if the traditional practice connects us with the earth, then I can adapt it to connect with my earth – my solid ground, my home.

Perhaps we can all navigate the bounds of the space where we dwell and in doing so, inhabit it more deeply. And when we feel held safely and securely, we can open the door and welcome others inside – the people from beyond our boundaries.

So that’s what I’m going to try – a moving meditation around my home, and I’m inviting you to join me tomorrow with a recording. It’s important to say that this doesn’t have to be a walking practice; you can move about your space in any way you are able, or simply take a mental journey. Please note: tomorrow’s post is for paid subscribers of The Coach House.

More reading
Beating the bounds
Thich Nhat Hanh’s walking meditation

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Photo by Lara Jameson