No, I haven’t been home recently. And at this point, I probably can’t go home.
To explain: I’m the sort of person who gets attached to places. There are people who do and people who don’t. I think it’s a factor of temperament? Like cats. There are cats who love places and cats who love people.
We thought Greebo was a place cat, because he was outdoors for 13 years and the king of the neighborhood. Sure, he came running when we so much as cracked the front door to check the mail, but we still thought… And then we moved, and he sat in the middle of the street crying all night, and the neighbors called us to come get him. Turned out he was a people cat.
But there are also people who rent or buy a new place and a few months later a cat shows up and the neighbors say “But they took him/her with them!” Because cats will do hundreds of miles back to their territory if that’s what they’re attached to.
Well, obviously I attach to people. I mean, husband hasn’t managed to shake me yet, and I get very depressed when I haven’t seen either one of the boys in over three months, so we arrange visits. BUT I’m also a cat with a territory.
My first territory was the village, of course. And I want to point out I attach weirdly. I missed the silhouette of the trees at the back of grandmother’s yard. I missed the quality of the light. The habitual sounds. I missed them more than people. When I went away, I ached for the familiar places and sounds.
But I had to leave. Many reasons, but to stay was to die internally. So I left. And for the first three or four years we went back every summer, and everything was the same. I could go have tea with grandma and pet the cats and–
When did it change? First I changed. I had to acculturate. And having acculturated, going back everything felt wrong, like clothes that scratch. And then…. and then the place changed. When we went back — to see my parents — I still would sometimes catch a familiar glimpse within the crowd. Now the people I knew are dead or old or have forgotten me. And the place is completely different. It got eaten by the city of Porto. It’s all high rises and asphalt. I can quite literally get lost within blocks of my parents’ house.
Sometimes, in the middle of it, I catch a glimpse of an old — now rusted — gate that used to be a farm gate, and I want to hug it to my heart as the memory of things gone by. I haven’t gone by or driven by grandma’s house in 10 years. I understand the formal parlor and all the space to the stairs are now a garage with a garage door. And half the backyard is under a highway. The place where we buried pets, the place grandma grew roses, the old shed where mama cat had kittens… And the neighbor’s field, where Dad and I would walk through — having jumped the back wall, like louts — on our way to the woods and our Saturday walks and adventures. All under very fast continuous traffic.
The place I loved is literally not there anymore. The geographical coordinates are, but nothing remains of the things I loved, the things that I was attached to. My nephews love it, but it’s their place, not mine. As far as me, I’m from no place that can be found on the Earth anymore.
And then…
You know, there’s places you live in that you just don’t attach to. They’re fine to live in. You might even love the house, or…. but even if you are a cat with a territory, there are places that feel like hotel rooms. You put your things in drawers, and you make yourself comfortable, but you know you’ll leave again soon. It’s not yours, just a place to stay.
Charlotte was like that to me. And Columbia South Carolina even more so.
But then we moved to Colorado Springs downtown, and I felt I’d come home. I still miss that walk from the corner of Cache La Poudre and Weber, down Tejon or Cascade (up Nevada.) to the library. I knew every shop and every minute detail back in 92-93. That remained, while we lived in Colorado, one of my centers of attachment. Later on, when we moved a couple of blocks up on Weber, my son and I would do that walk every morning, early, before school and before I settled down to work.
It became untennable and frankly dangerous as more and more feral homeless moved in, but we still did it until we moved away.
The other centers of my attachment to the area were from frequent visits to Denver: the Natural History Museum, the zoo, City Park, Pete’s Kitchen for late night dinner or– well, we used to go by one the way out of town be it for a conference or a visit to Portugal. Then stop by on the way back in even at two in the morning.
When we lived on the outskirts of Denver and Dan and I were newly empty nesters, we would get up very early on Saturday sometimes and go to the botanic gardens, and walk around and talk plot.
The place we’re living in is fine. There’s nothing wrong with it, and we have friends nearby. But it feels like a hotel room.
And I miss home so much I can taste it. There are days I’m so homesick I put youtube videos of people driving between Colorado Springs and Denver (we did that SO often) on and just watch them and cry. Or — without sound — videos of people walking around Denver. Or just webcams.
Thing is we went back once for five days, to see friends, mostly. Two years ago. And it was… Well, a lot of it IS still there. It hasn’t been that long. Except downtown Colorado Springs is now a weird condo canyon that feels like a mix of California and NYC. So that’s more or less gone.
And Pete’s Kitchen closes at night. CLOSES. Pete’s Kitchen! And all the furniture is now …. well. The cheap plastic tables and chairs in the annex were replaced by some student college bar bs. Most of the clientele are indeed college kids.
I won’t lie, though: I’d still go back if I could. Even with the ridiculous politics, I’d still go back. If I could. Except even two/three days is enough to make my autoimmune rev up to insane. So…. I can’t go back again. (And have wholly failed to persuade Dan to a weekend in Denver because of this. Well, that and flying there.)
So here we are. There might be — who knows — a place I attach to again in the future. The problem is you never know why or how, okay? There is no LOGIC to it. Dan and I drove into Colorado Springs just before Thanksgiving 92, in the middle of a snow storm. But we caught bare glimpses of the streets and the inner voice said “welcome home” for both of us.
Part of why moving away was so strange is that people kept telling us things like “Just go wherever you want. Go some place you want to live.”
I wanted to live where I was. THAT was not the problem.
Now I am the cat who walks alone with Dan and all places are the same to me. And from what I hear of friends back home, it’s more and more not my home anymore, but someone else’s home, with vague resemblances to the place I loved.
You can’t go home again. It’s not there. And you’re not the same person who loved it and fit in there anyway.
All you can do is go on and hope you find a place you fit in again. Is three times in a lifetime too much to ask for?
Oh, that and I can write about that place I loved, back there in time. By the magic of being a writer, I can go back for a few minutes or an hour back in my mind and be comforted.
And I do.
According To Hoyt 
“Home is where they have to take you in”. [Crazy Grin]
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.Sounds like you need new neighbors. Anything nice for sale in your neighborhood?
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not just now, no. :(
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You just clocked me right in the feels. I grew up outside a small town of 1500 people. Put it in the rear view mirror at 21 and never looked back except for three weeks between jobs. I drove through it a couple years ago. Everything is still there for the most part, my dad’s (now my brother’s) shop, the traffic circle, the one stoplight, the strip mall with the Food Lion in it, all of it. But it’s not home anymore. Not since my family blew apart with my parents’ lingering deaths and everything.
Home is where we live now. We landed here 13 years ago because my employer shifted me from one city to another two hours away and there was no way in hell we were living actually in Charlotte. We found a little house in this small city and lived there until we bought Casa Cow, and despite all the hell this place has put us through with broken HVAC and overgrown yards and long commutes, it’s home. You could literally bury me in the backyard when I die and let the Snoot poop on me every day and I wouldn’t mind because nobody’s going to come visit me anyway so why not put me in the place that we fought so hard to buy and live in?
We sent the kid off up North this morning. Will this be home for her? Probably not. She’ll find her own home. Every generation finds their own, even if it’s the same one they grew up in.
Excuse me. Gotta go get emotional about empty nests now.
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Hugs.
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I was an Air Force brat for my first 12 years, and we moved every 3 years or so. I never really developed an attachment to any place, as a result. Still, whenever I drive west, when I hit desert something says “It’s been too long away”. For reference, I was born in the high desert in California and we lived there for about the first five years of my life. The body/mind combo remembers even when the consciousness doesn’t.
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Me too, except 20 years, and 2-year moving cycle.
After Dad retired, wife and I lived CA, MI and then CA for 30 years, and I never had an attachment to where we were.
Oregon isn’t ‘home’, it’s just the last place I’m going to live, at least as far as I can foresee.
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Yeah. Knowing the house I grew up in is gone hurts. In some ways it hurts more than my parents and brother being gone. Even though I have no desire to live in that city again. Ever. So much so that I’d like to meet John Ringo and say, “You know how you had Faith take Trixie through Jacksonville? I grew up in that town. Thank you.”
And yes, I’m glad it was merely fictional. It’s not the people, it’s just the memories.
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I take little nostalgia trips from time to time, remembering the first house I knew – the one my parents had to find because the one-room converted single-stall garage where I was born was just too small; the woods where my friends and I would ride our bikes – now all houses; Christmas morning with my wife, and five kids all in single digits. Lots of wonderful memories, all still accessible to a lesser or greater extent, but as you say, all in a world that no longer exists except in my memories, and that’s a good place. Now I work to ensure our grandchildren (15 so far) build wonderful memories of their own, and that my wife and I will play a prominent role in them.
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As of right now, the lawyer says there are 8 liens on the lot. He’s checking to see if it’s actually worth going through probate. The plan is if it’s worth it, do probate, sell the lot, take the money (if any) and run.
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It’ll be hard when mom passes to sell the house that they built in ’63 (to ’26 and counting). Reality check is we’ve lived in our current house now for 37 years. The house that was going to be a bridge house because renting again was out (not with 5 cats and a German Shepard), stay and upgrade, sell and build. Never got to the last step. Never will. Now most of our cats have been *buried here (last two cremated, as was our last dog). I only lived in family home for 10 years until left for college. Then it was come home, leave for summer for work, repeat for four more years.
It was hard saying goodbye to grandma and grandpa’s place in ’07 after they died because my first heart dog is buried (along with all their animals for the 65+ years they lived there) up above the house (died ’90). I’ll never be able to go by and talk to her ever again. Hubby can go by and talk to his first heart dog as, while buried on the property of the house his folks built, the dog is buried near the road. Hubby stops by when in the area.
(*) First burial was 35 years ago, last 10-ish years ago. Are there any bones left to remove for cremation buried in wet clay soil? Still would be missing 4 dogs (too big to bury in urban backyard, thus the extended family property rural burials), and two cats (pulled the aging disappearing act).
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My parents built their house in 68. It’s also now empty as dad stays with my brother, three blocks away. When dad goes we’ll have to deal with it, and accumulated belongings of…. probably by then at least sixty years.
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You should have seen what my parents dealing with the house of almost 20 years was like when they were moving to Philly. My elder younger sister was helping and I commented to her that I obviously came by my hoarding tendencies legitimately.
That’s why I want to get our place sorted now, so we can have space to enjoy the stuff we keep, and so when we leave the place, for whatever reason, we don’t have a rushed disaster and people, us or the girls, having to hire construction size dumpsters.
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We’re still trying to sort out this house, and because I was sick last year, things became near unlivable.
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I’d been in my house 17 years when we sold it, and $SPOUSE had moved in with her belongings 3 years prior. When we put it on the market, the bid we accepted needed possession 2 weeks from that date. It wasn’t Keystone Kops, but between trips to give/sell/throw away stuff, plus moving the rest into storage units, it was exhausting.
That was a neighborhood I thought of as home, but the politics (it was San Jose, slightly before it went completely bonkers-left) and the prices forced a move. It reminded me of the ancient suburb I lived in as a kid. Google Streetview is instructive. The old suburb bears a strong semblance to how it was when I left 50 years ago (including the hardware store I worked at and the bakery my brother worked at). The downtown area for the San Jose neighborhood (Willow Glen, also pretty old; my house was circa 1935) is pretty much unrecognizable after 22 years. Also, with McMansions sprouting up, the residential areas are quite distorted.
$TINY_TOWN is home for the while. If one of us passes, we’d have to sell it. Just too much to do. We looked at downsizing during Covidiocy, but California refugees drove the prices out of our reach, at least for what we wanted at the time. Future compromises would be essential.
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We’ve move four times, post college. First move north (from college) was essentially 5 pickup loads, plus one small pickup with the new (dented floor model) refrigerator, and one car load (mostly unused still boxed wedding gifts). Not much more than that when we moved from first rental to first house (we’d bought couch and chair, washer/dryer, freestanding dishwasher, the essentials). First house, to rental for transfer, moving company moved us; one moving truck with room left over. That rental to current house took I forget how many runs in a moving truck; of coarse we weren’t packing it tight for the 5 mile trip either. My younger cousins, three boys, with their mom driving, transferred about 10 cords of firewood, and stacked it. The very thought of moving now? No. No. No. No. (No cords of wood, so there’s that.)
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Areas of San Jose, the higher end areas like Willow Glen in particular, are beginning to fall prey to what happened up in Palo Alto a couple decades ago when the dirt became vastly more valuable than the existing “improvements”. At some point the cost to demo a tract house and build effectively new (usually keeping two tiny pieces of wall and a corner where they meet so it’s officially a “remodel”) becomes such a tiny fraction of the crazy inflated price of the entire property that it only makes financial sense to tear it all down and build as many square feet as the City will issue a permit for, and then finish it out in super high end materials and such, just to maximize eventual selling price.
As far as I know in San Jose we don’t have techlord bajillionaires buying out entire blocks to set up fenced compounds like Commander Data…, er, Mark Zuckerberg has done up in Palo Alto. Yet.
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I saw the “one stick remodel” going on a bit south of Willow Glen whenever I went to the Home Desperate south of me, circa 2002-3. It was only one house, but I learned that it was an acceptable (to the city) way to do a huge build. Can’t recall who told me this, but one of the neighbors owned a big construction equipment company (Independent Scissor Lift). Hadn’t seen such on my block at the time, but it’s changed.
A look at my former block on Zillow shows that a fair number of houses have been turned into McMansions. One house had been on a double lot, and that was fully demoed and two houses built.
The SJ building department was bonkers in the ’90s. One neighbor was getting hassled, with the claim that the bonus-type room he was working on was illegal new construction. Even when shown 1930s pictures, he was still irate. As memory serves, the neighbors got a new inspector after complaining. The houses were difficult to remodel and keep the original character (lots of neat details, but no insulation, and wiring that had to be replaced if you wanted insulation). The easy route was a one-stick redo. So, I’m not surprised at the McMansions.
There was a rumor that a developer was trying to get enough lots to build condos on the block. Never happened. I suspect Willow Glen has enough clout in City Hall to block a lot of that in spots. OTOH, some of the older sections dated back further, with houses having serious issues (like the 1920s one with a 3″ slope in the living room floor).
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A friend of mine owned a Willow Glen house with a basement (a rarity out here anyway) where the concrete walls of that basement showed the woodgrain of the redwood 4×12 Beams that were the floor joists above, and all the joists had concrete residue on one side. The entire original house was framed in redwood and had plaster lathe walls. That one had knob and tube wiring overhead one the basement that was still hot, though the actual outlets and lights and such had all been upgraded to romex.
Definitely not a ‘50s-‘60s tract house.
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Yes, the immediate area around my WG house was subdivided in the mid 1930s. As of the mid ’80s, there were some newer houses, but a lot were from the original subdivision. Newer houses dated in the 50s-60s. Further north (near one of the parks), there were a lot of really nice 1970s houses.
East of Lincoln Ave, and especially east of Bird, you’d get houses built in the ’20s. Looks like the same builder as the ’30s houses. Dirt-floor basements (effectively dug out from crawlspaces) showed occasionally. One gotcha for the older houses was the use of serpentine rock as part of the concrete foundations. Mine was marginally OK, but if I had an extra $50K in pocket change, I’d have considered a redo. (Serpentine is a) local, and b) asbestos-bearing, c) lousy at sticking together with the rest of the ingredients.)
I did the partial redo of the bonus room with Romex. The original feed from the main house was soldered wires to knob-and-tube in the attic. I wasn’t eager to pull new wires or punch holes in the plaster, so I left it. Did several upgrades in the crawlspace. No idea what the purchasers did; the exterior looks the same, and Zillow says they haven’t sold.
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Our immediate area it isn’t getting the building permits that is the problem, it is not letting the city decide your property is now eligible for city taxes. Any new builds are city. Not sure about original house on lot split from (knowing city splitting the lot could trigger existing home into the city, would not put it past them). As far as additions or full rebuilds, latter depends on “one wall” or original foundation, not one stick, rule. Additions, whether one goes up, or out, still don’t qualify as city, but property tax on that section is valued at full value. Nor does a sale of existing houses doesn’t trigger city designation.
Selling of an existing house also does not trigger “current value” for taxation. This would trigger additional property tax of 33% to doubling property tax. But designating existing non-city houses, even at current taxable value will almost triple property tax amount.
Example, comparable house sizes, lots, taxable values, same area (north Eugene), one city, one not, different school districts, same fire district, 2025 – 2026 property taxes: $6700 VS $2300. I guaranty the taxes on the school districts isn’t making up the difference (they do pay more/$1000 for their school district, not that much).
I’m just grateful that the neighboring house sold to a couple, not a developer. Some split lots on many of the main through streets sold. Two have very nice houses. Right next to one of those new nice houses, are not one, but two duplexes, with very short driveways with room for two cars, no garages. There is room for a 4-plex in the back, with rumors one will go in. Neighbors on either side are not happy. Both the long time existing single home residence, as well as the newer single home residence. They would have been okay with a single duplex (that street has a lot of them), but an 4 – 8-plex? No. Worse, as there are essentially one non-street parking/residence. Depending on timing there may not be any street parking. The nearest county bus route is blocks away. Given the location of the grade school we have the same problem with on street parking. We don’t need on street parking normally. But we and the neighbors have been known to get peeved at anyone who parks in front or too close of the garbage cans when they are out there on garbage day.
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Several years back, someone tried to designate Naglee Park (near the campus) as a “blighted area.” My sister lives there. Absolutely full of 1920s Sears Craftsman houses, in good repair, often (as noted below) with original redwood structural features. (My sister’s house has redwood roofing structure, for example.)
Thankfully that power grab got axed. When the properties are running between $700K and $2.5M, and you can park cars on the street, it’s really hard to argue that an area is “blighted.”
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Tell me about it. I’ve helped parents clean out both sets of grandparents houses when it came time. Dang near 40 years later still haven’t forgiven Goodwill for what they won’t take for some of paternal grandmothers furniture. I think her church and a women’s shelter came and got some of it. Maternal grandparents some of it was burned, a lot of dump runs were made (free county dumps for residents, which property was). It hurt to see a lot of it trashed, but the mildew and mold was bad. Also helped hubby and his siblings help his mom clear their house (plus two double garages). Better quality of stuff, but a lot of stuff. The garage still had garage and building materials from their grandparents. Guess where a lot of the garage stuff ended up? Seriously we have equipment not only older than our son, but older than hubby’s older sister; probably older than my mom. It all works too. Great for pinewood derby cars, and Eagle projects (not just our son’s either).
Every single time we’ve helped clean out a home, we come home and purge. Trust me, we don’t purge enough. Although our son won’t have the fun my nieces will with their parents place. BIL seems to be the repository of all the antiques stored in houses of his parents, grandparents, and siblings. The kind stored generationally in eastern seaboard attics. Although as their three children start setting up households, they have one or two antique dining tables, side tables, headboards, mismatched dining chairs, etc., for each child.
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A mumble mumble years ago a group of friends showed up to help one member clean out his folks place as they were going into assisted living. Group of 30- and 40-somethings pitched to and started in on the plain suburban tract house, his dad having become something of a pack rat the past years. Going through rooms, getting stuff done, oh, look at this he saved, wow, look at all these, look, there’s more, okay, toss this stuff into the big bin out front. Much good humored mirth traded among people who’d known each other forever to make the job go faster…but at least for me as I worked to sort through someone else’s accumulated lifetime of prizes, the thought slowly dawned on me that someday some poor shmuck was going to have to go through my prizes. Why did he keep these? Not another one! Who needs this many books? What the heck is in here?
Humbling, that. Have I pre-gone through all my prizes since? Maybe a little, and maybe I’ve exercised a bit more restraint on new prize retentions, but there’s still a lot of prizes around this place.
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Same.
We take pictures. A LOT of pictures.
Occasionally I buy a t-shirt. Which eventually wear out.
Still I have things I should purge. But I also have things someone else will have to deal with eventually.
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BIL and his sister told their mother that they wouldn’t do anything with her house until after she passed. Rather than keep it empty, the grandchildren, who lived in the area (greater metro anyway) rotated in as “renters”. Paid modest (very modest, given location) rent and utilities. As the couples saved enough on rent to purchase their own home, turn for the next one. Youngest never moved in as caretaker as grandma passed away. None of the grandchildren could afford market value. Nothing has been said on followup, but a location where one house comes down, and townhouse multiplex condo or three houses go up to triple the highest value. Even if the purchaser doesn’t do that, the house would have been gutted and redone.
Mom’s house, and likely our house, with the state infilling directive, could very well suffer the same fate. Not multiple houses, lots aren’t postage new lot sizes but they aren’t acreage either (1/5 acre). But multiplexes, easily.
Worse, mom’s house has a flat roof. Flat roofs are not good when a freak 4+ foot snow dumps. Granted not high percentage of happening locally. But > 0% possibility is still a possibility, it has happened (’69). Don’t know if even possible to put a sloped trussed roof on it, or just mom and dad never could afford to do so (why didn’t put one on it when first built).
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“Loss of place” is a thing. To mourn a home that no longer exists. I feel it hard these days, especially when it feels impossible to build a new one…but then I realize, in my own crazy way, I am finding new ones. Now to work on one I can actually live in…
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I understand this too. I miss the Orange County/SoCal I grew up in, and the house I lived in when I lived in Los Angeles. But SoCal has mutated and I don’t recognize it anymore. My Florida home, now, is good enough and I’m tweaking it more to my liking. But I think my real long-term home is going to be my father’s home town. I just bought my aunt’s house and we are about to start the process of renovation. It hasn’t changed much from my childhood memories.
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“But it feels like a hotel room.”
Everywhere is a hotel room, Sarah. “We’re here for a good time, not a long time.”
“Home” is 1/2 an hour down the road from me. That’s where I grew up. Might as well be on Mars, because all of it is gone.
So I try to never go there. Because just driving through the place is painful.
Home is where I am, and where my doggo is. That’s good enough.
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Mom finally sold the childhood home in the country/’hood I remember. She then moved in with my sister, because no longer self-sufficient.
Whomever bought that house was wise. They bulldozed it, leveled the lot, and added the land to the adjacent property. Much as the house was home, it was never built right,. being mostly a product of the owners handyman skill, or lack thereof. And the immediate predecessor to us was -nuts-. I described an odd metal support pole under the middle of the house to a contractor. He identified it as a temporary/emergency fix for missing load-bearing structure. Not intended for 35 years+ of use. And what lunatic would have removed the prior structure? The prior nut who “expanded” the basement, including breaching the north wall and digging out a “storage cave” under the dining room.
Google Maps Street View shows the grassy yard, a few of the maples and pines that pre-dated us, a few of trees I planted from seedlings, and the gigantic Black Walnut tree that used to bomb the roof every season. (think baseballs dropped from up to 60-70 feet. – hundreds of them).
Gone. You cant tell a house was ever there, at least in the pictures. The bulldozer guy was -good-.
I haven’t been through the town since mom left. Nothing remains. All the friends left the area. Very high enlistment rate of good kids “get me the Eff out of this dungheap.”.
The neighborhood gentrified a bit. Old crappy houses gone. A few new ones up. The junkyard and falling-down antique barn/church/post/office gone. (Amish came and broke it up for wood.)
Gone.
I have a few fading pictures from wayback. Might as well be from Alpha Centarri. (grin)
My old Army unit still sort-of exists, under another Division’s colors. None of the original buildings are in use. Even the motor pool moved. Everyone I knew is either dead or retired. Gone.
There are parks and places I love that remain. Even some great people, although the ones older than me are dwindling fast.
But I seldom focus on the gone. I stick with the is and the new, and thus always have something to look forward to seeing anew or new.
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We moved so often when I was a child (8 towns and 13 residences, 10 of which I remember) that I became a thing person, no point in attachment to places, and not even really to people.
This thing attachment has its issues, and I really need to find someone to help my husband and I de-hoard our place – major Swedish death cleaning is in order – as he is a thing rather than a place person too. But we’re getting too old and creaky to deal with the clutter, and we’ve been in this house longer than I think either of us has ever been in our lives; we closed on it 1 week and 15 years ago.
But we don’t have any family in the area anymore, the parents moved down to Philly last October, where my younger sister and one daughter live, and daddy passed in June. (which means we can’t visit the cat and guinea pig graves anymore. our property is on terminal moraine and the only way to bury anything involves dynamite.) I don’t think we’d be able to find a place with 1600 sq ft, 3b/1.5b for the same monthly payment we’re making now down there, at least not in a section of Philly or its suburbs that we (and the rest of the family) would consider safe enough. Not that we’d ever see them, given that in my family the joke is that I’ll find out someone died by getting a text or call asking where the heck I am because the funeral is about to start. I was pleasantly surprised that people kept me abreast of what was happening with daddy that last week or so. (It was my sister, not my mother. If sis hadn’t called, I’m not sure when I would have found out.)
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This really hit me. I’ve spent the morning bawling, writing on the story, and working with midjourney to create a book cover.
I moved back home to a fully communist state (WA) because my sense of place is so strong. That and health issues related to living at elevation, but mostly this is home in a way no place else is or will ever be.
No regrets. This year feels like running just to stay in one place, and I’m lonely and tired and just done trying to accommodate a crap-job that pays the bills.
All will be well, this time of year is emotional and hard, increasingly so as time passes.
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Hugs, Kathy! I’ve been thinking about you lately and wondering how you are doing.
I’m so glad the move home was a good thing, overall. Remember, just because a place has gone full pinko commie, it doesn’t mean it will stay that way. Look at Poland and Argentina, for instance.
Prayers up for you! 🙏🙏🙏
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Hey there, Susan! BIG HUGS right back to you.
The move home was 100% the right thing to do. Like Sarah says, sometimes a place captures your soul. And Spain used to be completely Islamic awhile back, and is now nearly 100% Catholic (I think, something like that). Anything can change, and there’s lots of “not communist” people in my little enclave north of Seattle.
This can be a tough time of year emotionally. It can feel lonely, and like nothing is getting traction. It’s also my favorite season and I turn 66 on the 24th–my favorite day! And because I’m home now, my sister and her husband are taking me out to a fancy waterfront restaurant to celebrate. Huge win.
:) And do pray especially for the work/income situation to smoothe out and maybe reveal something better.
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Oooohhhh fancy waterfront restaurant!!
What a great place to celebrate! And with your sister, no less.
Many happy returns of the day on the 24th!! Here’s hoping this next trip around the sun will be your best ever!!
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Hi Kathy. The Reader is glad you are doing better and that the move has been good for you. Keep thriving!
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Thank you!
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I’ve felt the emptiness of places that are no longer there. The spare lot where I played daily with the family dog now has a house on it. Highway interchanges have consumed places that left me with memories.
And with attachments to things that are no longer real. A soda fountain in my childhood. The hardware store in my old neighborhood. The stucco’d house once occupied by the old family doctor, its porches now enclosed in the age of Trane.
But none of these ghosts of time and space hit me as hard as they’ve hit you. Hugs!
And, as I write this, lyrics come unbidden: Seid umschlungen, millionen. Diesen kuss der gantzen Welt! Or, perhaps, they were called by the emptiness itself, being Beethoven’s great answer to the existential terrors of the generations that were to follow.
I don’t recall that you’ve written anything about how you value “classical” music. Perhaps this is a good time to indulge in a good recording of the Choral Symphony. Especially if you’ve never indulged, the whole thing, without a break.
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*Shakes paw at njc* Darn you to heck! Now I’ve got that entire section of the 9th playing in my head, and I’m trying to sing along. (Ended up memorizing it because the page turns were terrible). Alle Menschen, alle Menschen, alle Menschen – Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt, diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt!
I’ve done the 9th twice. The second time, I reached into the Big Box o’ Scores and pulled out one that had MomRed’s notes in it, from the last time we’d done it. Much laughter and head shaking about the coincidence was shared among all. Both the chorus director and symphony conductor were impressed that things were now multi-generational with both organizations.
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Well, at least you can sing it. (And spell ganzen.) I can’t. But yeah, that’s a joyous coincidence.
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Hmm, it’s time for that. I have a road trip coming up and it’s a two hour drive.
Freude schoene Gotterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium
My singing voice is best described as ‘orrible, so I’ve never really tried to go beyond the first verse. Was greatly amused at the church hymn “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee”. I kept singing words like Flugel wielt instead of the official ones. Still, if you’re going to steal/borrow, choose the best.
At least it’s better than the hymn that uses Deutschlandlied* as the melody. “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken”. As memory serves, Obozo (or his minions) used it during some event for Jewish participants. #SMH
(*) Deutschland, Deutschland ueber Alles Sorry, I don’t do umlauts.
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I feel you Sarah. The place I called home now no longer exists. There’s a picture of the ranch on the front page of my website. Now it’s a full-fledged resort with condominiums currently owned by Marriott. One of my early stories was about exactly that. It’s called A Hearth for Ulysses https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BZTJZ9D1. How do you go home when everywhere and nowhere is home?
Sharon OTOH grew up a stranger in her own house and neighborhood. Her attitude was, “Wherever I’m going, I’m going home.” No matter where we went we were never tourists. She always made that place home even if we were only there for two weeks. Ironically, the only place she really felt pained to leave was Albuquerque. I had a six month per diem assignment at Kirtland AFB, and she, of course, made herself completely at home. For her it truly was The Land of Enchantment.
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The memory of long-past places endures. During part of my childhood, our house’s backyard (and many others) abutted a disused cornfield. We children of the neighborhood would play in it, naturally enough. When my family moved, I didn’t think back to it much.
Thirty-seven years later, I visited an area with an active cornfield. (Long story, but baseball fans may guess it.) I had occasion to walk into that cornfield, and the strength of the memories that hit me was remarkable. The loom of the narrow lanes between rows; the almost sub-aural rustle of stalks and hum of insects; the firm feel of the soil under my shoes, retaining moisture in shaded ground even in a dry season. It was a sudden recollection of what had once been home, in a place a thousand miles from that one-time home.
I could go back to that house and that neighborhood — which I know have both changed dramatically — and I don’t think the intensity of the experience would come close to what I felt in that cornfield. Well, maybe if I went past the backyard …
And before I forget, Sarah, happy Jane’s 250th birthday!
Republica restituendae, et, je suis Charlie.
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For Twin Cities Janeites, the Heights theater in Columbia Heights is presenting the 1940 adaption of P&P at 7:30 this evening . . .
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we’ve lived in NJ most of our married life and it’s never felt like home. Going back to NYC … hurts since everyone we loved has left and most of the old places are gone. We had also bought a place on the south coast of England to retire to for part of the year, we sold it since we will not live in a dictatorship.
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As a young child I moved many times with my family. I hated it every single time. I am definitely a place and thing person. I have lived in several states and towns. But I have been in our current house for 36.5 years.
I would love to never, ever, move again. But I am guessing that health will require it. Especially if something happens to Dear Husband. Our 1934 vintage home requires a level of upkeep that I am in no way able to either accomplish nor could I afford to pay someone. Dear Husband is a master craftsman so he can do it all.
But, the neighborhood I have lived in, lo these many years, is not the same as the one we moved into. Since I have watched changes occur over time, you’d think I wouldn’t notice so much.
But I do. I miss the frog pond where my boys used to build rafts that is now a Fire Station. I miss the butcher shop/ grocery store that smelled just like my grandmother’s pantry when you walked inside. I miss the beautiful old parish church that was replaced by a concrete monstrosity of a building that does not even resemble a place of worship on the outside. I miss the downtown shopping that’s been replaced with a Dollar General and a Subway. No cafes, no hardware store, no drug store, no theater, no ladies or men’s stores.
My house is still home, but…I guess if I have to move elsewhere, I can manage. I’ve done it before. I just hope I don’t have to do it alone. Because I can honestly say, real home is wherever my dearest is.
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Things vanish, and you don’t know when.
Sometimes you can’t even remember what. There are places where I suspect I remember trees that were since felled, but I can’t be certain.
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I joke that there’s an invisible bungee cord attached to me, because I move away for a few years, then come back, move away, and come back. The past 20 years have seen more changes around here … The one that hits the hardest is that the old culture is fading away to become a mere tourist attraction (rodeo, regional fair, so on) rather than a living part of the place. The ties that link the past to now have been weakened, deliberately in a few cases, and I don’t think the area is the better for that.
I’ve joked that I want the amenities of today (minus the “not head shops, really, seriously, pinkie swear”) with the culture and sense of place of the 1980s. And with the light pollution of the 1980s. [sees soap box sidling up, scoots off other way]
I want to stay in RedQuarters, even though it takes a fair amount of work to keep up with. MomRed’s health may demand that it be sold so she can move into something smaller and closer to assistance. Sorting the books will be hard, especially since so many of the western history collection is almost out of print, or is out of print.
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I’ve moved away a few times. I keep getting yoinked back. Not that I can get properly settled in here, since the ground that a house sits on is so absurdly expensive in LA County, but I keep getting yoinked back.
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I have moved multiple times over the years. Some of those places really felt like home, some felt more like passing through. I really get what you’re saying in this post. After a number of moves we ended up in my wifes home town and only about a hour and a half away from my childhood home. I’ve driven back there a number of times but it just isn’t the same. This little town has changed too over the time we’ve lived here and I think my wife would agree its just not the same. Too many things have changed with the years and, in the end, I think what we really miss is the way things were. We miss the times that have gone past and the places that used to be……….. We’ve raised our kids and have grandchildren to enjoy but all the years are still in our minds.
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I miss the foothills of the Appalachians. Granite, under soil and scattered as glacial boulders. Streams with sugar maple leaves. Violets in little grottos. None of that is here.
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I too was raised on granite. And Colorado is granite. Maybe I need granite to be happy?
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Could well be. It tends to lead to natural fluoride in the water and better teeth, which is good.
…And the Graboids can’t dig through granite.
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The Appalachians are still here.
Yeah, some places are built up a bit more. All the local cow fields are plowed under. Asphalt, concrete, wood and stone now. Mostly. There’s still thickets around the creek beds, sugar maples, oaks, beech, and spruce. Angry red squirrels still try and assault the yard, and territorial samurai cats make squirrel burgers out of them.
The leaves still come out a treat in the fall. Reds and oranges and yellows, all over the roads across the mountain. Plenty of good little hole in the wall places to eat still. Local barbecue place is internationally known, who’d have thought. You can walk down main street these days, though there’s different bars. Different clientele. Fewer railroad men and steelworkers. More psuedohipsters, but they’re still outnumbered by the local rednecks. By far.
The coal trains still come thundering through every night. Power plants still need that black gold. Little kids still go running about shoeless through the woods, scandalous to the new blood hereabouts. They catch crawdads, jump in mud puddles, race up grassy hills and slide down the wet side, climb trees and make joyful nuisances of themselves.
Life ambles on at the slow pace Appalachia knows. The old radio station closed down, then opened back up, closed down again during the covidiocy, opened back up under a new experiment just a few years ago. They put in a new footbridge across the main artery of the little creek that runs through town. The old wooden one was not just an OSHA violation but a a horror show. Dragged the creekbed and built up the banks to stop the erosion from getting ambitions. Saved some lived there, when the last flood came through.
By and all, the Blue Ridge keeps on keepin’ on. There’s diesels playing drag race down the long stretch of the county roads out back. Horses getting loose in town when they figure out how to work the gate latch. Deer wandering around at oh dark thirty, crossing the pike to get to the old orchard (now defunct) over the hills.
And there’s me. Still here banging on like always. Feed the fuzzmonsters, write a bit, work a bit, laugh a bit at the craziness of the world outside these little mountains. Folks are funny out there. Bit good, bit bad sometimes. Like all men are.
We try for the former, more oft than naught. Sometimes succeed.
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Beautiful prose. I enjoyed it.
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He sure writes purty. And funny when he wants to. he’s good at it.
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THIS SO MUCH.
I’m sitting in the house I grew up in. It was built between 1900-1920, in stages, by one of the first residents. My family has owned it for almost seventy years. To quote some song or another: “I ain’t changed, but I know I ain’t the same.”
The elms I climbed as a child are still there, and the orchard of elderly apple trees. (Likely planted when the house was built.) But the neighbors are all gone. The Hausdens moved away, so did the Morgans and the Underwoods and the Peices. Mr. Whiteman passed away and so did Miz Sonneir and Old Mr. Hausden. New houses are shoehorned in between the old ones, made of oh-sh*t-board and promises.
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Interesting thing to think about. I don’t think I’m a place person, in spite of living in the same house for 50 years. I know I’m not a people person. I tend to leave people easily–or rather, they leave me and I let them go easily.
Maybe things, but not usually specific things. Useful categories. Maybe I have lived in my own head and my own worlds for so long that my territory has moved inside.
I do tend to get attached to my characters, so maybe that’s it.
I think about this place, though. The house does feel like a hotel, but the property is home. Don’t know if that makes any sense at all.
It was the same with my old house. I don’t miss the house. I miss the garden.
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This hits hard for me too.
The house where I grew up no longer exists. It was on rented ground, and we moved into it as part of the conditions of farming that piece of ground, when I was ~3 and my dad got an opportunity to go into farming with Mom’s father (his mother was living in the house on the old family farm on his side of the family, so that farm was not an option). We stayed there even after that piece of land was sold, because the new owner (who wanted to add it to his huge operation — this was around the time when Get Big Or Get Out started happening in agriculture) knew us and knew we’d take good care of the house.
We moved out right after I graduated from high school, because Dad got a town job up in the Chicago area, and left that house in much better condition than when we’d moved in fifteen years earlier. The first tenant after us was one of the landlord’s employees, so he took good care of the house because he wanted to stay in good standing with the boss. The tenants after that were just warm bodies that paid rent, and from what the neighbors (friends we stayed in contact with) told us, those people lived like pigs and just pretty much ruined that house, to the point that the ground under it was worth more than trying to put it back into rentable condition. So the owner had it torn down and everything plowed under, to the point that apparently the wellhead is the only sign the farmstead ever existed.
Even the house on the old family farm is gone. When we were still farming, we used it as a sort of vacation home, but we really didn’t have the wherewithal to keep it up. After it got broken into and it was obvious it had deteriorated badly, my folks decided it was a legal liability and arranged with the family friend who farmed the ground to have a friend with a bulldozer tear it down and bury the foundation.
Quite honestly, the farming communities I grew up with are gone. The school where I went through K-12 has consolidated with its old sports rival, and there are maybe half the number of school districts in the county compared to when I graduated. When I wrote “One Last Homecoming,” I was pulling out a lot of the nostalgia for that lost hometown.
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As a Golden State Native, one thing I tell people is pretty much everyone you talk to here is from somewhere else. But absolutely everyone is also from somewhen else. Even though I bought the house I grew up in, the “golden” (dry grass, except briefly when the new stuff grows annually) mountains to the east and the green ones to the west are still intact, and the streets are laid out the same, there’s pretty much nothing left intact of the places I did that growing up. The “back orchard” we rode bikes around in, abandoned by the ‘60s and ‘70s, is now a 30 foot deep six lane freeway (which is why when I was a kid it was abandoned orchards and not more suburban housing developments, but it took the state 50 years to get around to building it); the “side orchard” is all triplexes; the table grape vineyard at the end of my street is more houses; and even the local elementary school, while the buildings are still there, is now something else for which the school district rents it out to a private operator, and there’s a proposal to high-density it for teacher housing.
There’s still a 7-11 that once was my Mom’s absolute no-go limit for me when ranging around on my bike (sans helmet – gasp – yet I know of nobody across all my local school years dying from that barbaric past practice). The rest of the stores are all different – some in the same buildings, some bulldozed and built up new.
The weather’s the same, but the rest is so different now than where I grew up it might as well be a different city. And that doesn’t count the effects of the various away-times that occurred in these past decades.
So even the back again, when accomplished, doesn’t bring one actually back. “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” And the things there differ as well.
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Father in law was born in San Rafael in 1907. Wife was born in Pacific Grove, and then they lived in San Luis Obispo; sister in law still lives there.
I think CA was a lot of ‘home’ for my wife, and yet she let me move us when I could no longer stand CA government. Of course, parents had all passed on, and daughter and grandchildren had moved out, so the real anchors were gone. But that seems to say that -I- was what made home, and I guess that was reciprocal.
Damned empty house …
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I’ve lived in Northern Virginia longer than I lived in the town I grew up in, but I’m still a Buckeye more than a Virginian, and always will be. I get back to my hometown maybe once a year; my parents are still there, and my younger brother and his wife still live there. The town has changed quite a bit, grown up, grown out, but driving around you can still get a sense of what came when, like looking at rock strata.
I suppose going back there is a homecoming, but it took me a while to realize that the arrogant punk with a cute girlfriend* and a totally unearned high opinion of himself no longer exists. I can’t go back to who I was, and I can’t go back to the hometown of the early 1980s. All I can do is look across that gap in time with a sense of wonder, and I suppose a little melancholy.
And that’s okay, as long as I don’t overdo it. My wife’s been a nomad for longer than I have. I don’t really know how she feels when we visit her hometown. I know Manila’s changed a lot since she left — it’s changed a lot since the first time I saw the place in 2005. Does she feel sentimental about it when we visit? I suppose I should ask her.
I don’t really know where I was going with all this, but someone’s been cutting onions in here, and I suppose I had to add mine.
*Cute girlfriend and I broke up right before I left for college. She wound up marrying a good man, and they’re still together, two sons and four decades later.
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The palce I lived longest — half my life — was Colorado.
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Cheesman Park, East Colfax, Cinderella City, Celebrity Fun Center on Colorado Blvd, the smoking lounge in the Old Denver Public Library where the tween me would read the first and last pages of my book selections before officially checking them out, eavesdropping on the old men smoking cigars and gossiping about what an asshole Buffalo Bill was, then dead 50 years.
They come from the east coast and the west, apply their grand solutions to make us a “World Class City.” They tell us now we are only now truly hip because you can get Brooklyn pizza (thanks, Beaujo’s has always suited me). In the doing they are dismantling the charming city that drew Kerouac, Ginsburg and Burroughs to found the Beat Movement. (My mom was one of the girls in the room … )
I don’t drive, Capitol Hill has been my “15 minute city” for the same span of 50 years. Successive Democratic mayors have greased the skids for big developers leveling blocks of darling bungalows to build new brutalist, faux loft slums of tomorrow. As my dad would have put it: “It’s just a damned mess!”
Home ain’t home anymore.
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You and I agree, though I didn’t spend as much time there. Only 32 years. But I got there as soon as I could. And I’ll miss it the rest of my life.
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Much as I love my little mountains, my home of many years has been more a pair of old boots than it has been some place with a roof and four walls. Moved about a lot in my younger days. Lived out of the trunk or truck bed. Big city, small town. Different, yeah, but home was in my head. Still is, in a way.
Hotel, motel, tent, or flat spot out of the rain. I’ve slept standing up, on a flat of wood, in a chair in my office, in my truck, on the floor, and on the dirt. Woken with a kick, a siren, a nudge, and once falling into deep water. Not fun that last.
Attachment to place isn’t much there. Just the books. The fuzzies. The family. Those are what makes place matter. When they’re there, I’m there. Someday it’ll be just me. We all owe Himself a death. I’m the last male of a line that stretches back to Rome or thereabouts, near as I can tell, when some grubby tribesman crawled out of the bush and signed up for the legions.
Change is not to be feared or be saddened by. It just is. Life is change. There are echoes of the past literally everywhere you look. Sometimes, the past comes back for a little while. Not always in the best of ways (as in when the Commiescum win). But sometimes when you meet someone who remembers what it felt like too.
The over the fence network of little old ladies. The Occasions that every man had to attend, with his wife and family, on pain of social suicide. Food prepared and served at said Occasions. The gathering together of the old men on rocking chairs, talking about the farming or hunting weather, the politics, or the women. The weekends working on cars, stoves, washing machines, and various other projects that was just a part of life- you did for yourself all the way up to (and sometimes past) you couldn’t.
The ripples of the past are still there today. Social media, and its’ parent the internet will likely go down in history as bigger than the Industrial Revolution in terms of widespread change. We live in a time of tumult. What the future holds is more murky than ever, but exciting and terrifying in equal measure. Through it all though, whatever that future may hold-
Babies are still being born. Cooking still happens in the kitchen with scratch ingredients, at need or want. Families still have their rituals- even if it may be virtual- that stretch long backwards in time to oral memory. At least, around here they do.
Be not afraid of tomorrows. They will come, sure as the rooster crows at midnight (the local one does, nutty bird). Todays are for what meaning and matters we give it.
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It’s what makes going back to San Francisco so painful for me.
The things that made San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose so unique are gone…and gone in a way that is worse than any empty building. Leveled and removed in such a way as to deny it ever existed.
And replaced with nothing, or things that are worse.
I saw recent photos of the house where I lived and grew up. Fence is gone that Dad built, replaced by a soulless…thing that just seems to taudry. Looks like they tore out Mom’s garden bed for a mother-in-law unit that they’re probably renting on AirBnB. Side lawn that I played scrub football on now is a parking spot and the Classic Ethnic Multiple Cars are all over the place on that narrow street.
And the whole ethos of the place has changed. I’m not happy there, I’m not happy here anymore.
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I grew up in what is now an uber wealthy town – La Jolla, CA. But when we lived there (70s-80s), while there was money, it was low key, and we truly lived in a village (the ‘downtown’ was even called the village by everyone). We all knew each other, everybody’s mother watched out for everybody’s kids, we knew who we could go to if something happened… all that. When I went back for my most recent high school reunion, the ‘village’ was nothing more than a beach front Rodeo Drive. There’s almost nothing left of the quirky little village with little local stores sitting on the ocean.
I so want to go back, but my village no longer exists either.
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La Jolla was still like that in the early 90s when the Reader was in the area on business quite a lot. The last time he visited (2011) it made him sad.
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I despise what they did to Richmond. I’m just glad my beloved got to see Monument Ave. before the tolerant, diverse, inclusive folk pulled down all the statues.
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Did two separate stints living in the West End (out in the county, not in the city) both times, in fact Daughter Unit was born at Henrico Doctors. I will never spend another penny in that craphole of a city. I had always thought that folks in Richmond would stand up to defend history, but I was sorely mistaken.
In fact today, outgoing Governor Youngkin was proudly tweeting about how he was there watching them take the Robert E. Lee statue out of Statuary Hall in the US Capitol and replacing it with Barbara Johns, who was the first black Virginian student to attend a segregated White school. Which…OK, but he talked about “telling the story of Virginia.” You can’t tell the story of Virginia without Robert E. Lee and the entire Lee/Custis families.
Yet another reason my beloved Commonwealth is no longer my home.
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The Reader agrees. One of the many reasons he plans on leaving the Commonwealth in the near future.
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However here feels for you it’s home to me and I’m not sure I’d have moved here if you hadn’t suggested mutual cat sitting when I was looking to escape the South so I am glad it worked out for that at least. I’d miss you and the others if you do move on at some point but of course you need to do what’s best for you and the kitties! And of course Sister A will keep looking after me and the others even if three of her four most famous siblings are elsewhere!
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The Reader is struggling with how close to ‘home’ this hits. For the last 39 years, home has been defined by where our son was. We moved to VA in retirement (not our personal first choice by any means) because he was here, and we somehow knew that he would still need our support, no matter how independent he tried to be. That proved to be correct, but now with his passing this year, we are ‘homeless’. With the just past election, and large demographic changes in the locale we live in, plus the memories, VA has become untenable for us to spend the balance of our lives in. The Reader and his wife both have health issues to resolve (wife scheduled for knee replacement in March and the Reader is headed for surgery to repair a leaky mitral valve later in the year), and we have to sell the house our son was living in (we jointly owned it). Hopefully by the first half of 27 we will be on to the next adventure, keeping in mind the Demon Murphy may have an input.
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I do not have attachment to a particular place. I do, however, have an attachment to not moving.
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Was inspired to look up some child hood ( and young adult, too) sites.
The place I lived from 3 to 5 was still there. To my amazement, I remembered
not only the entry of the house, but the old horse barn that served as a garage
for my Dad’s car. (This is all using street view…) The area has changed quite a lot.
What used to be a through street is now a dead end, and the old house across the
street where the old lady who ‘adopted’ me as her ‘local grandson’ had been replaced.
Looked like the big gold fish pond is gone too.
6-11 is also still there, mostly unchanged from the exterior. There’s a big fence around the back yard, now, but I still reacted to the spot the neighbor’s Pekinese bit me.
12-adulthood; the Farmhouse is still there, but all the original outbuildings are
gone. The old Mennonite church at the edge of the property looks mostly unchanged.
First place I rented with my first wife is gone. The older views shows the area all grown over,
but then a new house was built there.
First place I bought, and raised my children is also still there. New owners made what I think are some weird changes; was able to see the interior on Zillow as well as what was the back yard and garden. I think they might occasionally board horses.
And the next, and probably my last house ; Zillow says it has doubled in value. Will
probably be here until I am forced into ‘assisted living’.
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Home is where you make it, and whom you make it with.
I will tell you right now that no place I ever rented ever felt like home.
It wasn’t mine. So, I suspect hominess requires a sense of ownership.
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Lake Erie is my place. I spent the first 22 years of my life within a few blocks of the lake.
I move to other cities, ones that my husband knew – Pittsburgh, near the Allegheny mountains – but they weren’t home.
I lived in South Carolina, and truly enjoyed my home and the community.
But the pull back to the lake region was strong. I moved back in 2021, to care for aging family, and I settled in right away.
Sometimes, early in the morning, I get up early, hop in my car, grab a cup of coffee, and go to Lakeview Park. I roll down the window, and enjoy the smell and the sounds and the right of the lakefront. Just fill up my soul with it.
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This hit hard.
I grew up on a small place ten miles outside of a small town in the Ozarks. It has been empty for seven years now. Long story short, we had a family intervention to get Mom out of the place and took her in with us. She passed a couple years ago, and for some reason it apparently takes years for probate even with an estate with zero debt.
Recently I went back with a friend. We took our chainsaws and axes. It’s completely overgrown. I think the only thing holding on are the irises that have spread since the late 70s. A treetop was broken off in a windstorm a couple years ago and went through the front windows, so in addition to being empty it’s also open to the weather.
Cleaning up the mess, the feeling of loss was overwhelming. I had gone to the family home, but it isn’t there any longer. You mentioned becoming attached to places, I think I only attached to this one. Every place I lived after leaving for college was just a place to put my stuff. Even when I got to where I could purchase real estate rather than rent. The current place was the same, until I met my wife. She turned it into a home.
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George Carlin said it best: “Home is where you keep your stuff.” 😄
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Home is both place AND time. You can go back to the place. Nobody I know can go back to the time (except in stories.)
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It can take months even when you set up the estate to tell probate that nothing needs to be probated, and succeeded.
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Months, yes. This is approaching two years.
>
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I haven’t been by here in years, but I want to thank you for this. Not quite where I am exactly, but feeling like I don’t belong anyplace and never did is a thing for me, sometimes, just now. So the thoughts here resonated a bit and then some.
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