Where We Lived

It’s interesting how a home, a property which we knew as children and young adults can have a grounding effect on us. It can be calming and peaceful to return to a place which we once knew and interacted with. Perhaps it was our home or a friends home or a field where we played. It could be the school, perhaps for some people who’s schooling was a good experience. It could be a town, a type of lifestyle once lived. It is always some place in the past where character was developed and understandings formed. It may not have always been a pleasant situation but it was ours, or it was where we were. I remember the house we lived in in England when I was young. I don’t know very much at all about why we were there or what my parents were doing. I remember being told that my father was a telephone operator for awhile and that my sister would pick up the phone so that she could talk to him. I don’t remember that, I was only told it. I don’t remember the other places we lived before that, I was three when we moved to that house. I remember other things about it, things that mattered to me, things about that house which involved me. There were eight of us children at that time and when any one of us travels back to England we always try to drive by that house and stop to take a look. Something about seeing it, even though it is so changed is healing and peaceful. We take pictures and send them around to the family. The house was called ‘The Laurels’. There are other places in our family but many families had one main childhood home. Usually a family will move from home to home as they work on finding the place best suited to them. Perhaps they will rent at first and move to different rentals trying to find out which home best suits their style. Some day they will buy their home and settle down. It may be difficult for some children to identify with a childhood place if there were too many moves. It may well be a school or a park or a vacation spot which is that place for them. I raised the children in a small house at the edge of a factory town in the heart of a farming community. Later we moved to the place we are now. It was a difficult move for them and they still feel connected to that first house. They have a lot of memories there. I also took them to Canada in the summertime where they most likely have some great memories. Now they are building lives of their own and raising children of their own. Their children will be forming their own ties. They are forming attachments to places and homes. Places which will draw them back when they are older, to discover something about themselves which only their inner child knows. This is what I find happening when I begin to write. I find myself writing about places I once knew. I’m not writing about the home I now have. I write about places my childhood knew and the feelings which arise from that childhood. I am finding out something about myself by reaching down deep into those memories. I feel a grounding, a peace and security in connecting with a place from long ago where I was free. Free from responsibility and care. Free from adulthood. The mind processes everything differently in childhood, being immune yet to the concerns of this world. Money is not more than a toy to a child. A child’s purse may have a coin and a rock and a piece of ribbon and each are equally valuable to the child. If asked to keep only one thing, it very well may be the rock which is kept. Whether the family is rich or poor makes no difference to the child who lives whatever is expected. I had one play dress, one school uniform and one Sunday outfit when I was a child. I had school shoes and play shoes. I didn’t know what other people did because we never owned a television and all the children at school dressed in the same uniform. We didn’t get new clothes every year. I didn’t question this because it didn’t matter. It wasn’t even the actual house which was important to me. The closet at the bottom of the stairs though friendly and large during the day was brimming with monsters at night and the basement was the scariest place of all. Even the rats at the back of the yard didn’t scare me like the basement. It was the business involved in growing up and living with the others in the home which was important. The games we played, the battles we fought. The banister I slid down, only to be greeted by a wooden spoon and my father at the bottom. The short flight and thrill were worth every stripe. There were other homes that hold the same and maybe more for me, since that home. I don’t really think consciously about these places, but when I write I find myself digging around in the memories of the walls of these places. Pulling out the feelings and convictions of my childhood soul. A place where hopes and dreams were bountiful. Where the whole future is ahead and yet unknown and possibilities soared. A place and time in which I had not yet been crushed and broken. A time where I was me completely. A time when I was proud to be me. A beginning not yet governed by the voices of culture and religious views, where everything I wanted to be was possible. That’s where I keep finding myself when I write. Perhaps I’m looking for something there. Perhaps I’m looking for the me I was meant to be.

Elizabeth Williams, writing exercise, 1,003 words.