Feels like home
This photo was taken when I was in about 4th grade. I can't really discern from the photo itself whether this was a particular occasion, or if it was just some random snapshot.
I'm wearing my favourite sweater and my hip little jeans with the cat painted on them. It's before I cut my hair, so it must have been before 5th grade.
The point, I guess, is that I found this in an old crate of photos that hadn't been collected yet when my parents moved. It was tough to walk into that house and see all of the essentials gone- the TV stand, the furniture, the photographs- and the random objects and litter left behind. My father said, with a touch of regret in his voice, "It just seems so DEAD." My parents had lived there since I was five, and it was the first house they had ever lived in for more than three years.
The house itself was old, and falling apart and left much to be desired. It suffered from architectural flaws (the upstairs had been unfinished for roughly thirty years), electrical flaws, heating flaws. It was insulated with woodchips, and it had no basement- just a concrete slab. For some strange reason there was a full car engine buried in the backyard, and an old concrete cistern buried in the front. But we made this place HOME for close to twenty years.
My mother made the kitchen cozy and clean, and my dad gave it a furnace to replace the baseboard heaters. We had mice and birds, and the benifit of the tranquill sound of a healthy creek behind the house (which masked the sounds of Hwy 45- go figure). There was a forest to ramble through just across the street. And we had some wonderful and interesting neighbours over the years.
It was everything a writer could want as the wild and natural setting for a childhood, and as much as I could easily post the real estate picture, THIS photo actually embodies how I think about this house.
One little girl, in her safe haven from the pressures of elementary school and the bullies that went there, hanging out around the house. Smiling a real smile. Loving a real home.
I'm wearing my favourite sweater and my hip little jeans with the cat painted on them. It's before I cut my hair, so it must have been before 5th grade.
The point, I guess, is that I found this in an old crate of photos that hadn't been collected yet when my parents moved. It was tough to walk into that house and see all of the essentials gone- the TV stand, the furniture, the photographs- and the random objects and litter left behind. My father said, with a touch of regret in his voice, "It just seems so DEAD." My parents had lived there since I was five, and it was the first house they had ever lived in for more than three years.
The house itself was old, and falling apart and left much to be desired. It suffered from architectural flaws (the upstairs had been unfinished for roughly thirty years), electrical flaws, heating flaws. It was insulated with woodchips, and it had no basement- just a concrete slab. For some strange reason there was a full car engine buried in the backyard, and an old concrete cistern buried in the front. But we made this place HOME for close to twenty years.
My mother made the kitchen cozy and clean, and my dad gave it a furnace to replace the baseboard heaters. We had mice and birds, and the benifit of the tranquill sound of a healthy creek behind the house (which masked the sounds of Hwy 45- go figure). There was a forest to ramble through just across the street. And we had some wonderful and interesting neighbours over the years.
It was everything a writer could want as the wild and natural setting for a childhood, and as much as I could easily post the real estate picture, THIS photo actually embodies how I think about this house.
One little girl, in her safe haven from the pressures of elementary school and the bullies that went there, hanging out around the house. Smiling a real smile. Loving a real home.
posted by Phinux | 9:52 PM
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