contain : : 

to have or hold within

You close the door behind you, with eagerness but without ease, you sit to relieve your legs of the weight of the day.

You retire your shoes, encrusted with the debris encountered on the cluttered canvas of a street on your way from the train, your bike, a car. Particles descend to rest on a mat. A pad of mud remains patterned with your boot’s footprint. The day’s silt starts to settle, though the day’s goings-on remain cloudy.

We bring into our homes the cluttered house of our bodies, our hearts, our brains. And at times, the hardest work to do is to rest.

Arrive. Settle. Recompose. Your house, your home, your Self contain these assorted joys and miseries in one space, to be tended to in time.  

sustain : :

to strengthen or support physically or mentally
 

Whether the day’s work demanded physical labor, the fulfillment of a calling, or simply the accumulation of a paycheck, work is not done without cost to the body.

You repay the body for its labor with something hot for body become cold, something cool for a body worked too warm, something savory for a mouth become hungry, something enticing for a mind grown weary. 

You recover what was lost.

Ritual resolves the pain of routine. Here, you sustain life, love, and friendship, so that you can offer your Self once again. 

maintain : :

to cause or enable to continue

Time collects the days, and shelves collect dust.

Beyond ritual and rhythm, you must tend to the nature of things tending toward the chaotic. Belongings find a way of becoming misplaced, thoughts scurry to far corners you’d rather not sweep, a relationship’s gears become squeaky with the strain of distance. Even that which is most familiar demands meticulous attention. 

We beings must also do. We must function. 

Time juxtaposes fracture and finesse. To maintain your Self, you must make from change an equal and opposite approach, and from relapses of reticence, you must foster redemption. 

retain : :

to keep possession of;
to keep in one’s memory
 

Not all that is within your home can be seen, can be touched, can be moved. Some of the most important parts of your home can be held, for we are materialists. But we are also mentalists. We make for our Selves an invisible storehouse of memories, of notes, of understandings, of dreams.

A house provides the comfort for their flourishing, a home, the fertility for your ripening, and our bodies, the vessels for soulful conspiring. 

Here we learn, here we remember, here we retain.

Your home is your keep, and our body keeps your Self at home, wherever you are.