Living Large Even When it Doesn’t Feel Like it
I’ve lived in many places in my life, but have only called a few of them “home.”
My first home was the Little Green Bungalow, my parent’s first home. When I was 15, we moved to the Big Brick Tudor, a 1920 era house that was once the largest in our town. It was my mother’s Dream Home. It is that house that I sometimes miss; probably because it was the last home that I shared with my parents and brother.
This past weekend, I dreamed of that home, being there with my mother and Dale in its expansive Victorian era rooms with the beautiful wood beams, trim and built-in bookcases and china cabinet.
Dale and I were renovating the house, so we must have owned it in my dream. The vision was so real that when I awoke, I could still smell the smells of the house and feel what it like standing inside and outside of it on the driveway.
When I awoke, I longed not only for my mother and home, but rooms where size wasn’t the constraint on placing furniture and decorating.
“I had a dream we were back in Mom’s house renovating it,” I told Dale when I was up making coffee on Sunday morning. “I wish we would have bought that house.”
When we realized Branson, the closest large town, didn’t have a place to have Dale’s glasses made on a Sunday, I felt even more homesick, and that feeling spread to Dale.
The conveniences of moving furniture on a whim and being able to even make a spontaneous trip for the most basic of things and possibly meet up with friends for dinner and/or drinks is impossible at Our Little House.
There is only one way to place furniture in the tiny living room and larger stores that offer conveniences such as making glasses the same day are two hours away, which requires planning and hiring a pet sitter for the dogs.
Living in Our Little House is not always easy and it sometimes doesn’t feel like we’re living very large.
But then we’re reminded of the things we have and can do here: A cozy respite away from the inconveniences and nuisance neighbors sometimes cause; five dogs (I don’t know of any suburb where you can have five dogs including a pit bull); the hoot of “our” owl lulling us to sleep at night or the coyotes raising a fuss at dusk; low utility bills; the beauty of the lake and best of all, a house that can be cleaned in less than an hour.
I needed to talk to someone from home and we called one of our best friends, my godbrother and his wife on Sunday. It wasn’t dinner and drinks, but he made me laugh enough to ease the uneasy feeling of homesickness that still sinks in from time to time.
When I got off the phone, Dale and I cooked brunch and enjoyed a day watching movies and shows we DVR’d throughout the week. By the time we headed back to bed, we were fully present in this life again. The coyotes had sung their song in the woods and the owl seemed even closer to Our Little House, our home.
Do you ever miss someplace you called home?
My parents bought a farm in the country the year I graduated from high school. It had about a hundred acres and a rambling farm house with five bedrooms. It was the family anchor for so many years; Christmas, Easter and special family gatherings were always held there.
My two daughters grew up spending weekends and vacations there, rambling the land with my dad, picking up rocks and learning about nature from my father, a self educated naturalist. Their walks always ended up in the kitchen of the farm, where usually my mother had baked up something special for their return- brownies or chocolate chip cookies or some other treat.
The farm had to be sold when my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Everyone in my family was heartbroken, but there was no way my mother could manage the place while caring for my dad. All of us, especially my daughters, left pieces of our hearts in that special place.
Just last summer, my husband and I bought our own country place, with a house big enough for family and friends to gather, a chicken house, a nice garden area, acreage to wander and explore and for my husband- a somewhat reasonable commute.
Though I do miss the convenience that city life offers, it was well worth the trade off to live in this quiet, peaceful place, close to nature and away from all the bustle. We had about eight inches of snow last night, so we are snowed in for awhile, can’t even make it out of our drive, but I don’t mind- it’s beautiful. And- I look forward to the day my daughters will bring their own kids here to roam and wander and experience nature close up, like they did.
Both places sound magical, Kathleen!
I think that there is something magical about your childhood home. It embodies so many memories and emotions. My parents still live in the same home, but have renovated, remodeled and added on to it so much that there is almost nothing that is the same anymore, so sometimes I feel nostalgic for the house I grew up in.
We used to live about an hour away from real civilization and it was a pain in many ways – not being able to run out to a store for something and spending so much time in the car. I loved a lot of things about where we lived then, but I don’t miss the inconvenience it caused sometimes.
You’re right about the family home. I always tell people I didn’t leave home, it left me. I was 20 when my mom sold her house and that’s when I got my apartment. I often wished (and sometimes still do) that I had a family home to go back to visit, it seems so grounding somehow. It’s a blessing you do, even though it may be much different in appearance now.
I returned to northern Arkansas from Orlando, so this was a homecoming for me… but I do sometimes dearly miss the little luxuries of downtown city life.
When we go to Branson, the drive home is always quiet and peaceful (the kids always fall asleep, exhausted by our trip, whatever it was). I have a ritual: I make my way downtown, buy myself a coffee at the Starbucks drive-through, and enjoy it with the peace and quiet as I drive, returning myself and my children back to the small-town world that we’ve chosen. It’s like a little “goodbye” to the retail-oriented, convenience-aplenty existence that we no longer immerse ourselves in.
I’m glad we live in a small, beautiful, unspoiled little town. I’m glad that I can count the number of stoplights in town on my two hands. But man, do I ever savor and appreciate that cup of Starbucks!
I do the EXACT same thing, Kim, on every trip to Branson (which isn’t that often!) That drive back on 65 is so nice with that coffee in hand! 😉
I do love our quiet, rural life here. But I’ve come to realize that it’s ok to have periodic jabs of missing some of the better things of city life. I wouldn’t trade not having neighbors for anything, and I know the dogs wouldn’t either!
I sometimes feel that other people can’t possibly understand what we’re going through, but you summed it up very well. Our life changes haven’t yet involved shrinking our home size to 480 sqft, but it’s been a ride none the less.
I lost my job in march 2010 and by June, my wife and I had to leave co.or ado springs and move into a very old and run down mobile home on my in-laws property. We were broke, and couldn’t afford to move our possessions so we had to give them up.
We had a stupid amount of stuff crammed into a 900+ sqft apartment. We had to fit our entire lives into a pt cruiser and drive 800+ miles to our new home. Needless to say, we gave up a lot of things, and we still miss some of it.
More in line with your post is that we miss the conveniences of the large city we lived in. We could get anything we needed within a 10 minute drive, and now we have to coordinate vet visits because they’re in the next county.
I won’t even get into what we’ve gone through to make this mobile home livable, without income, but it’s nicknamed the battle house.
However, we now live a quieter, simpler life and both my wife and I are making a go a making a living from our creative talents. We didn’t have that chance stuck in the big rat race/hamster wheel.
As tough as it can be sometimes, especially when wanting something to spoil ourselves like a starbucks coffee is an hour drive, but it’s peaceful, we’re planning our subsistence garden for the spring and are living a life with a lot more freedom.
Good luck and keep the great work.
–pb
Hi, Peter, We’ve experienced some of the same things in the past two years, the loss of a job and struggles trying to make it when my business was down.
I’m sorry for all you’ve lost, but I believe that things happen in our lives for a reason. We’ve learned to live with less stuff, learned more about the environment and our own health – all things it sounds like you’re learning as well.
Good luck to you in your new life. Having a new life and Living Large in it doesn’t mean we sometimes cannot miss the good things we had in the old. 🙂
That’s so sad, V. It’s funny how places can bring up such emotion, isn’t it, even after many decades. My mom sold her house in 1984, but when we drive by it when we’re back home, I can still remember every nook and cranny.
Sorry for the type o, i just got new glasses and I am having a problem typing and seeing the computer screen and bifocals. Yikes! wouldn’t make it as a copywriter, would I?
Yes, my grandparents wonderful small brick home that my granddad built for my grandmother, who had nothing when they married.
It was 4 blocks from my parents home and I loved it as I could walk to and from very easily and at that time in the 60’s in my town you were safe to walk, not so today.
I drive by it several times during the month when I run errands and it still sometimes brings some tears on. My parents wished that they could of bought it, but my dad had a brother and sister who were mentally unable to licw on their own and lived with my grandparents so when everyone passed away, my parents had to place the aunt and uncle into section 8 housing as my parents could not afford to support them and me, and the house was sold.