HOME

PLEASE NOTE:
(I am still unable to include a photo with a Post. I was waiting to post again when the problem was fixed but I have decided to get back to posting my little stories. I hope you enjoy. Photos will soon return.)

HOME: Most of us will go through life having more than a few places we will call Home. As life goes on, those places will remain with us no matter where we go. That is because home is defined in our hearts. Home tugs at us. Like a bird in its nest, we know when we are there. Home wraps us up in warmth like an old, tattered quilt. Home keeps the world away.

Home allows us to be still.

I have a few places I call home. The one that comes to mind more often than not was my first home. The home where I grew up before we moved to the country when I was in the third grade. I remember every nook and cranny of that clapboard house situated along a lane. I can still feel the 2nd step going down into my bedroom move whenever I was coming or going. I can still hear it creak. I can still smell the aromas from the kitchen coming up through a register in my bedroom. I can still hear the wind swirling through the pine trees in the back yard.

A few years ago, I drove by that house that used to be yellow but is now an emerald green. That did not matter. I still saw it as yellow. The owners happened to be out front. I knew the minute I saw them I was going to stop.

I pulled up next to the same curb that I would jump over and walk on when I was a little girl. The sidewalk where I would ride my bike remained the same. It just didn't go on forever like it used to. Or like I imagined it did.

Getting out of my car, I introduced myself to the owners and explained why I was stopping. Without my asking, they invited me inside the house that tugs at my heart.

As they took me from room-to-room, changes made to that home did not matter. In fact, I felt the 2nd step going down into what had been my bedroom move although there were new steps. Three in fact. And they did not move. I could smell the aromas from the kitchen still coming up though the register although the register was no longer there, I could hear the wind swirling through the pine trees in the backyard even though the pine trees had been removed.

I define that home by memories I hold dear in my heart. While I do not dwell on that place and time, when I think of it, I get in touch with that little girl inside me. That clapboard home on the lane grounds me. It brings me back, then pushes me forward and on I go to the place I now call Home. Out in the country with a small barn out back and fields to explore with smells and textures all its own.

If you are going back this summer to a place you once called Home, enjoy your visit. Like a bird in its nest, you will know when you are there.


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