[More on the topic of: Location, Location, Location]When I go back to my hometown of York, PA, I can literally take a trip down Memory Lane. But the street seems horribly misnamed today, because hardly a thing along said street is the same as it was when I lived in that town.
There really is no place like home, since "home" doesn't seem to exist for me anymore. The notion of going "home" for the holidays leaves me feeling off-kilter, since my father allowed my childhood home to literally fall down around him. There are new owners now who've reportedly built something from the ruins, but other than peeking from the safe distance of Google Street View, I really can't bring myself to go by the old place.
For a number of years my own efforts to put down roots were tentative at best -- during one five year time period I moved a total of seven times! My mother and step-father, meanwhile, retired to Florida and occupied a series of homes in the 20 years they spent there. None of those places were "home" to me.
Now my mother, widowed, is living in my "new" hometown, and we have shared a house for almost 7 years. Most of the time it feels like I'm living in her home, but I'm slowly beginning to accept that I'm growing new roots here, rather than looking for the first opportunity to move somewhere more cosmopolitan. And I am feeling less of an obligation and more of a desire to stay put and make this place truly my home. There's no denying that I also want my daughter to never feel as I so often did: that there was no "home" to go home to.
Nevertheless, I've adopted the turtle - or maybe tortoise - as my personal totem. I like that turtles are "at home" wherever they go. The unhurried pace at which they travel through life suits me just fine. And a tough outer shell is a quality I'd like to cultivate for myself, too -- along with the willingness to stick my neck out more often.
I can't stand to wear turtleneck sweaters, though. Do you think that will pose a problem?
Just yesterday, I drove by my last childhood home, and also the last house my parents lived in before they died. I would give my eye teeth to go inside either of those houses now, but I don't have the nerve to knock on the doors and ask. I am here in my home town for the funeral of my best friend, who is the last link I have to this city. I may never return here so today is very sad for me, for several reasons. It is the end of an era for me.
ReplyDeleteThe two houses that I would consider my childhood home have both been demolished...an empty lot at each site. A traumatic thing to see as an adult, but even more so when I realized that in both cases they were the only ones demolished in their respective neighborhoods. Everything else has been restored to yuppie perfection. Symbolism of the highest order, methinks.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I am wid ya regards turtlenecks.
After my parents sold my childhood home (best move, because they were going to lose it in foreclosure if they hadn't) I was sad, but didn't really dwell on it. We have created new traditions which includes me doing all of the cooking, and I have never had issues with it. Maybe because my parents are still married?
ReplyDeleteNow they have returned to our hometown, bought an amazing house (2 doors down from the home of my bff from grade school) in the neighborhood I always wanted to live in! And it feels like home to me.
But my son is appalled by any mention of DSD (his step father) and I selling and moving. This is my HOME, he says.
I'm still living on the homestead I grew up on. I built a house on the lot above my parents' home with two brothers on adjacent lots. It is home in every sense of the word but now that my parents are gone, and the city has grown up around us, it feels a lot less attractive and I would consider moving but I have no clue to where.
ReplyDeletekenju, I'm sorry for the sad circumstances surrounding your return "home." I hope you have some good memories, even if you never return.
ReplyDeletejaded, that is weird. And yet liberating, if you can see it that way. There are parts of my past I wouldn't mind obliterating.
LLL, maybe your son will figure out that it's the people that make a HOME, not the structure.
Mr. C, your squirrels would miss you if you moved!
When my mother had died and we moved my father to assisted living close to us, four hours south, we sold my parents' house to a young cousin with a new baby. Because it was family, we halved the price. It meant more to us to see another dear family would enjoy that house than to see profit. I do get to go back to that house, but it's not the same. There's a house in my head, though. I can see every nook and cranny. My parents are still there.
ReplyDeleteLoulou, that's a generous thing y'all did. My family had no such giving nature -- my grandfather did give my father and uncle each half an acre (of his 100) for wedding gifts, but he refused to even sell them additional land. (So I guess there is some weird negative mojo at the old home place that just can't be romanticized away...)
ReplyDelete