Memories are a funny thing. They catch you when you least expect it. I was remembering all the placed I’ve lived. There are 11 in total. My favorite house was tucked away in a little knoll and was the same one my grandparents had lived in years before. I can recall the long grass that grew around it, the burdock bushes we jumped in as kids getting them tangled in our hair and stuck to our clothes, and the cellar door that I must have run past a hundred times while playing and being chased by one of my sisters or cousins. The oil barrel sat atop a wooden structure that I used to climb up to sit on top of (until Mom caught me)!
There was a wood shed attached to the house that was scary but we had to go in there anyway. The bathroom had a tub and toilet but not much room for anything else. There were sometimes mice in the pantry. Upstairs my sister had the coolest room. It was really a storage space that you could barely stand up in with a hole in the floor for the heat to come in from the kitchen. The area around the upstairs bannister was open and we used to lay there listening to the adults downstairs when we were supposed to be in bed,
The windows on one side of the house overlooked the harbor, I never knew then how much I would miss that view in years to come. My mind goes back to a warm and sunny summer day when the song “If you leave me now” by Chicago was playing on the radio and the breeze from the ocean was drifting through the open window across the hall from my bedroom. I don’t know why that image has stayed with me all these years but I’m thankful it has.
That house is no longer there. I grew up and left that place. But it’s memory stays with me always. My heart aches to be back there. To see that view again and to breathe in the salty air of my hometown, to hug my sisters and relive the times we thought we couldn’t wait to escape. There really is no place like home. It will always be first place for me.
“If you leave me now you’ll take away the biggest part of me.”
Heart Strings 