The House that Built Me

I know they say you can't go home again.
I just had to come back one last time.
Ma'am I know you don't know me from Adam.
But these hand prints on the front steps are mine.
And up those stairs, in that little back bedroom
is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar.
And I bet you didn't know under that live oak
my favorite dog is buried in the yard.

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like I'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself
if I could just come in I swear I'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.

               -Miranda Lambert, The House that Built Me

Those who know me well know that I hate pickles and olives.  They know I love singers like Jewel and Savage Garden, that I hate scary movies, and that loud noises and chaos make me want to jump out of my skin.

Those who know me well also know that I'm a pretty sensitive person, and I get very emotionally attached to worldly things like cars, books, and homes.  This blog is dedicated to my childhood home, the home I've spent much of my life in, the home I spent my formative years in.  

Let me digress for a moment to say that this home has also been home to many other families and people before me.  I don't want to make it sound like I am the only one who ever lived there or made memories there.  I know I kind of came in last, and the home wasn't originally my home.  Two families were blended together, and I consider myself a lucky person to have so many people in my family.   What I'm going to write about tonight is my personal experience with the House that Built Me.  It did, after all.

My mom and step-dad are selling their home after many years - Darryl has lived there over 40 years and essentially raised two families, and my mom has lived there with him for 25.  Like any family life, not all of the years were good, but that is life.  And the years make up who we are.  

I moved into the house on Alaska in 1990 when I was seven years old.  I was terrified of it at first, because it was filled with people I didn't know, smells I was not familiar with, noises I couldn't identify, and - worst of all - upstairs bedrooms that separated me from my mother, who I had pretty much shared a room with for most of my life up until that point.  My poor mom - I slept on the floor in their bedroom for many, many, MANY nights because I was too afraid to sleep upstairs by myself. 

After a while I got more comfortable, and the room at the back of the house became mine.  The windows looked out into the backyard, where a great Walnut grew and I could see Bogus Basin from my bedroom window.  It's the best room in the house - the coolest in the summer, and the coziest in the winter (though there is a smell of creosote from the chimney that runs right through the room).  I loved that room.  I did try living in nearly all the four upstairs rooms at one point (except for my brother's room), but in the end, I always came back to my room at the back of the house.  Like I said, it's the best.

It was in that room that I grew up.  Where my decor changed from  pink paint and little girl accouterments to hundreds of pictures of puppies cut of of calendars that adorned my bedroom walls, to dark burgundy paint and pictures of hot guys cut out of teen magazines.

My brother and the puppies on the walls

I had a lot of sleepovers with friends in this room.  I also had a couple of special sleepovers with my brother on Christmas Eves, where he would sleep on the floor and I would sleep in my bed and we would laugh and laugh until late into the night.  I remember him calming my fears one night because I was afraid that our dog at the time, Bandit, would try to attack Santa Claus, and that Santa Claus would retaliate and injure or kill our dog out of self-defense. Luckily it never came to that, though Bandit didn't last long because of his determination to kill every cat in the neighborhood. 

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Christmases were the best.  We were not rich, but my mom always made our Christmases amazing.  My brother and I would sneak down the stairs early in the morning, rounding the corner to the landing to peek at what Santa had left behind.  I remember a couple of years in particular: the year I got a bike with a radio on it, and the year I got a karaoke machine (my poor family had to listen to me belt out Shania Twain and LeAnn Rhimes for way, way too long).  

Summers were also awesome at that house, especially once I had my dogs, Kiko and Lucky.  I loved to lay out in the front lawns, laying my head on lucky's side while he snoozed in the sun, Kiko keeping watch from a few feet away.  I'd usually have a book in hand and a content feeling inside.  Those puppies were the best.  Sadly they are not buried at the house under any trees, as the ground was frozen when they crossed that rainbow bridge, but their memory is forever with that house and in my heart.

My beloved grandpa took his last breaths in that house.  A death which I'm sure he never dreamed of and never wanted (he always wanted to go out bravely on a mountain top with his boots on in God's great outdoors fighting of a grizzly bear by hand, or something like that).  I will forever cherish the quiet last moments I got to spend with his body before he was carried down there stairs by two men who loved him greatly and looked up to him. I stood in that particular spot perhaps that longest today.

The house went through a lot of changes over the years, from a complete remodel shortly after we moved in, to the dirt driveway finally getting concrete; my own room changed colors countless times, and doors put on the old garage.   The front door also changed many times. 

The beginning...

My awesome cousin Greg in his cool shades in the kitchen before it was remodeled

My friend Kenna in the driveway when it was still dirt.

The one room that never changed was the family room at the back (or front?) of the house.  With it's orange dingy carpet, ugly brownish copperish wallpaper and freezing cold temperatures in the winter due to a lack of insulation, that room was forever a favorite for watching movies and hiding from whatever was going on in the rest of the house.  This was our official TV room, and we never had a TV in the main part of the house until after I grew up and moved out and my grandparents moved in.  The family room was too cold for them.  :)

There is a stair, second from the bottom, that squeeks in the most delightful way when stepped on, and I always teased my mom about farting when she would step there. 

This happened - homecoming day!

There is a tin box buried in the front yard that I will probably never find that served as a time capsule for my friends and I, buried sometime in the early nineties.  I don't remember it's contents.

The basement is unfinished and has a musty smell of dusty concrete and iron, and can feel a little damp and creepy if you spend too much time down there.

The fan in the "computer room" whirs annoyingly.

I descended the stairs many times to a handsome boy in a tux holding a corsage after patiently waiting for me to finish my make-up for homecoming and prom.

I played on many tire swings over the years, hung from the great trees that adorn the property and provide shade and shelter to the aging house.

In that house, many hugs were shared, laughter rang out, angry words occasionally exchanged, meals cooked, tears shed, games played, children raised, grandchildren learned to crawl and walk and play, and love was grown.

Today was my last time visiting the house that built me.  As my two older children played in the trees outside, the house was quiet and I found myself alone (well, with my baby boy) in the house.  I walked every room, taking pictures in my head and remembering different things that happened in each room. I ran my hands along the walls, wiped away some tears, and said goodbye.   Even Camden was quiet and melancholy as we strode through the house, sharing one last walk-through in a house that he will have no memory of. 

I feel as though as loved one has died - the memories are there in my heart always, but now it's just an empty shell where life was vibrant and has now gone quiet.  I keep reminding myself that my memories are not retained in that house, but in my heart.  Home is with us always, in our memories and hearts and not necessarily in the sheet rock and concrete walls of a house. 

I always dreamed of my children having that house to go to to visit Grandma, playing in the vast lawns and under the great shade trees.  Many adventures are yet to be had there - but those adventures will be had by someone else - another family, another child.  I hold the memories made in that house forever near and dear to my heart, but it's time for someone else to take over.

I happen to know that the family buying that house has young children, which I am grateful for.  They will make amazing discoveries and go on amazing adventures as they find all the nooks and crannies and secrets of the house.  There are so many places to hide and explore.  I hope they are able to hang tire swings, dig holes, build a new tree house, play hide-and-seek, and ride bikes and have sleep-overs with all the neighborhood kids.  

As hard as it is to say goodbye to my childhood home, it's simply time.  Time to let go, time to move on, time to discover new places.  I'm lucky - I spent most of my childhood in one home. I had roots, and I am grateful.  I had a warm bed and space to run and people who loved me.  What more could I ask for?  My goal in life is to provide the same for my children.

I hope in 20 years I can go back and knock on the door and ask to look around my old home.  I'd love to touch the walls and find my way back to my childhood, find those memories back in the house that built me.  

My kids on the front porch, the last day at Grandma's house on Alaska

Stupid Cat (please read the whole post before you judge me here)

We got our stupid cat October of 2012, shortly after I had quit working at the bank.  We had actually been to the animal shelter looking for a dog several times, but never found the right fit for our family.  We were walking past a little cage filled with kittens and I said, "Hey honey, what about a cat?  They're pretty easy."  So, we peered in at the fuzzy little faces and chose a couple tabby ones that we liked.

We took the first one in a little room for a "test drive" to see how it would do with the kids.  Well, he cowered under a chair and away from us the few minutes we were in the room with him, so we sent him back and got the other little tabby.  He was the cutest kitten!  He acted like a big-shot super hero at six weeks old, walking around the little room like he owned the place, investigating the kids and playing around like he was already part of the family.  We knew he'd fit right in, so we adopted him on the spot.

I've always considered myself a dog person.  I've never cared much for cats - I've always thought of them as snobby, self-centered creatures.  I would much prefer the sloppy drooly company of a giant dopey dog!  However, the kitten was cute and over time, he kind of grew on me.

The first night we had him home, he immediately perched himself on my shoulder and took a nap.  That became his special place in the evenings, and I really didn't mind.  I thought it was kind of cute.  It only became a problem after he grew up and there was too much of him for my shoulder, so he had to resign himself to my lap instead (or my chest if I happened to be laying down reading a book).

He grew on me over the years, though I still often referred to him as "Stupid Cat" (even though his name was Scout).  As far as personality goes, he had one of the best ones I've ever seen in a cat.

Every morning he would sense me stirring, and would coming in mowing his good morning to me, then follow me to each of the kid's rooms as I woke them up.  He would walk into their rooms meowing his good morning to them, then rub against their little legs as they rolled out of bed.

He loved to cuddle with one of the kids as they lay on the couch drinking a warm cup of milk.  If he wasn't sitting right on top of someone, he would reach a paw as far as he could to make sure he was in contact with whoever he was sitting nearest.

Matt and I would always laugh about the fact that he acted part dog.  He loved to play fetch with his favorite toy, a pipe cleaner.  He kept his stash of pipe cleaners hidden under the oven.

When someone would come over, rather than skulk away to hide like most cats do, he would be the first greeter at the door, then usually sit in close vicinity to whomever  was visiting, often cuddling up right next to their hip on the couch.

During family gatherings, he loved to lay in the middle of the floor right in the middle of everyone so he could be a part of whatever was going on.


Over the nearly three years that we had him, we tried our best to keep him inside.  It worked for a long time, but in time, he started bolting out of open doors.  He usually kept to our yard (even right up until recently as far as we know).  We don't believe in letting our animals roam, and believe it's irresponsible and disrespectful for an animal to poop in someone else's yard (heaven knows we have plenty of cat poop in our back yard that did not come from OUR cat).

I tried to not like him, keep my affections from growing for him.  But the stupid creature was just so...likable!

Every time he got out, Matt and I would always say that one of these times, he wasn't going to come home.  Well Monday, that time came.  He escaped out the sliding glass door as he often did, but this time, rather than coming home after an hour or two, he just didn't come home.

Stupid cat.  Didn't know what was best for him.  Stupid cat for worming his way into my heart.  Stupid cat for breaking the "cat stereotype" for me so that I actually LIKED him.  Stupid cat for winning me over. Stupid cat for adoring the kids and showing particular affection for the baby.

Stupid cat for making me drive miles and miles of back roads over the last two days hoping to catch a glimpse of him where someone may have hauled him away and dumped him.  Stupid cat for making me call the local animal shelters every day, hoping someone has brought him him.

Stupid cat for making me lose sleep wondering what could have happened to him.  Stupid cat for making me leave the back door open when I leave the house, just in case he does come home and is hungry or dehydrated he can go right to his designated eating place.

Stupid cat for leaving a cold spot in my lap when I sit in the living room in the evenings.

Stupid cat for actually making me ugly-cry for you.

Stupid cat for leaving a void.

Stupid cat for making me like you.

Stupid me. I guess I really am a cat person after all. I keep hoping I'll walk through the kitchen and see you sitting at the back door waiting to be let in.  I hope you find your way home.

The Treehouse

Once there was a tree....
and she loved a little boy.
And everyday the boy would come
and he would gather her leaves
and make them into crowns
and play king of the forest.
He would climb up her trunk
and swing from her branches
and eat apples.
And they would play hide-and-go-seek.
And when he was tired,
he would sleep in her shade.
And the boy loved the tree....
very much.
And the tree was happy.
But time went by.
And the boy grew older.
And the tree was often alone.
Then one day the boy came to the tree
and the tree said, "Come, Boy, come and
climb up my trunk and swing from my
branches and eat apples and play in my
shade and be happy."
"I am too big to climb and play" said
the boy.
"I want to buy things and have fun.
I want some money?"
"I'm sorry," said the tree, "but I
have no money.
I have only leaves and apples.
Take my apples, Boy, and sell them in
the city. Then you will have money and
you will be happy."
And so the boy climbed up the
tree and gathered her apples
and carried them away.
And the tree was happy.
But the boy stayed away for a long time....
and the tree was sad.
And then one day the boy came back
and the tree shook with joy
and she said, "Come, Boy, climb up my trunk
and swing from my branches and be happy."
"I am too busy to climb trees," said the boy.
"I want a house to keep me warm," he said.
"I want a wife and I want children,
and so I need a house.
Can you give me a house ?"
" I have no house," said the tree.
"The forest is my house,
but you may cut off
my branches and build a
house. Then you will be happy."

And so the boy cut off her branches
and carried them away
to build his house.
And the tree was happy.
But the boy stayed away for a long time.
And when he came back,
the tree was so happy
she could hardly speak.
"Come, Boy," she whispered,
"come and play."
"I am too old and sad to play,"
said the boy.
"I want a boat that will
take me far away from here.
Can you give me a boat?"
"Cut down my trunk
and make a boat," said the tree.
"Then you can sail away...
and be happy."
And so the boy cut down her trunk
and made a boat and sailed away.
And the tree was happy
... but not really.

And after a long time
the boy came back again.
"I am sorry, Boy,"
said the tree," but I have nothing
left to give you -
My apples are gone."
"My teeth are too weak
for apples," said the boy.
"My branches are gone,"
said the tree. " You
cannot swing on them - "
"I am too old to swing
on branches," said the boy.
"My trunk is gone, " said the tree.
"You cannot climb - "
"I am too tired to climb" said the boy.
"I am sorry," sighed the tree.
"I wish that I could give you something....
but I have nothing left.
I am just an old stump.
I am sorry...."
"I don't need very much now," said the boy.
"just a quiet place to sit and rest.
I am very tired."
"Well," said the tree, straightening
herself up as much as she could,
"well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting
Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest."
And the boy did.
And the tree was happy.

~The Giving Tree

By Shel Silverstein

The story of The Giving Tree was the first thing I thought of as I watched my husband pull the remnants of many wonderful childhood memories out of the tired old tree.  For many years, only a  desolate moss-covered platform has occupied the space where there was once a large, two-room tree house.  A tree house that provided countless hours of elevated fun for numerous kids has simply been a playground for squirrels and landing pad for doves and pigeons.  But oh, it was once a glorious place.  

I cannot lay claim to the tree house - it originated before I was even a thought on Earth.  My step-dad built it with and for his children in the mid-seventies.  I wasn't there to witness the construction of it.  I don't know how many hours it took to build, how many boards were cut just right, or how many nails were pounded in.  I don't know how many slivers dug into the working hands that put up the tree house, or how many fingers got in the way of the driving hammers.  I wasn't there to witness the meticulous calculations of making sure the tree house fit just right into the waiting arms of that massive Elm.  I'll never know the excitement those children felt as they watched their Dad erect this massive wooden haven, the giggles shared, the stories told, the dreams imagined for that place.  Those sacred memories belong to Darryl and his children. 

But I am thankful they happened, and that I also got to share in the fun of the big tree house in the big Elm.

When I first moved in to the house on Alaska Avenue, it was 1990 and  I was 7 years old.  I was terrified of that tree house, and being a child who was afraid of everything, I could easily picture my broken body laying at the bottom of the rickety ladder which led up to the tree house, having slipped from a rung or gotten dizzy and disoriented on my way up.  I refused to scale that thing for a long time.  But one day, my brother talked me into it.  

Karlin climbed up that ladder before me and coached me on the way up. There was a big, thick branch towards the top of the ladder, just before you reached the open doorway of the tree house, that you had to snake your body over in order to complete your ascent to the top.  That was the worst part.  I remember standing on the rung just below that branch, shaking, not knowing how I would ever get over that big branch into the tree house, or back down for that matter! But, with Karlin's coaching, I snaked my little body over that branch, and found myself standing triumphantly in the middle of the tree house.  I still wasn't fond of making my way up that ladder, but soon I forgot how scary it really was, and I visited that tree house daily.  

After making some neighborhood friends, they all joined me regularly in the tree house, and soon we were the typical story-book tree house dwellers, pooling our money together to try to buy knick-knacks and carpet to fix that tree house up.  We kept a jar of money "hidden" there, and to be honest, I'm not sure what ever happened to the couple of bucks we managed to acquire.  

We spent countless hours up there, playing, sweeping, cleaning, and playing make-believe.  We always talked about having a sleep-over in the tree house, but my mom never allowed it, and I'm sure the parents of my friends would have never allowed it either.  We never did spend a night up there (though I can't say with certainty that my brother never slept up there).

After a few years of climbing that old rickety ladder hundreds (if not thousands) of times, Darryl decided to take that ladder down and replace it with a sturdier, marginally safer stairway.  I remember watching him build those stairs, and position them just right up to the door way of the tree house.  The stairs were marvelous! I really don't remember if they had side rails to hang on to, or if it was just a dangerous drop off on both sides of the stairs, but I didn't care.  The stairs were so much easier to climb up than that ladder!  

Several more years were spent playing in the tree house, and those stairs stayed in place for a long, long time.  I even had a dog who wasn't afraid to ascend those stairs up into the tree house.  She wasn't sane by any means (my husband always said she reminded him of Ed from the Lion King, the not-right-in-the-head hyena), but she didn't mind heights.

More years went by, and eventually other things took my time and attention.  School, Flag Corp, a boyfriend - life just happened.  But life always happened in the shadow of that tree house in the Elm, which stood above us like an alter to our childhood memories.  

Eventually, Darryl took down the stairs that led up to the tree house door.  A few years later (once I was married and out of the house), he started to tear the tree house down.  It was very old and dilapidated (not so different from what it was when I played in it as a child, but I didn't notice it), and we weren't sure of the safety of it anymore.  Walls came down in pieces, but for some reason, no one was ready for the finality of a big empty space in the big Elm just yet.  After those walls came down, the floor of the tree house remained, and sat there cradled in the tree for many years.  Without the walls around it, the platform wasn't very note-worthy or attention-drawing, so no one paid it much attention.  

Until Mom and Darryl started talk of down-sizing and selling their home (a story for another blog, another day).

It was decided that the platform should come out of  the great tree, so that whoever buys the house wouldn't have to risk their lives to take it down themselves.  So, I volunteered my young, able-bodied husband to scale a ladder 20 feet into the air and start knocking that platform out of the tree.  

On the day the platform came down, the weather was forecast to be a bright, sunny and warm day.  This did not turn out to be the case.  When we woke up, it was overcast, but we didn't think it would rain because the weatherman said it would not rain until the following day, and weathermen are always right.  Right?  

By the time Matt set up the ladder and was working away, it started to sprinkle (or "leak", as Audrey says).  After a while, the leak turned into a heavier drizzle, and the temperature dropped more.  Still Matt worked away at the platform, as I watched from below.  I know it's a little melodramatic, but I couldn't help thinking that the sky was weeping for that tree house, mimicking the thoughts going through my head.  In the pale light from the overcast skies, the tree, too, looked like it had given up, given in -  sagging in it's old age, mourning what it was once, and what it had once held.  

I have to admit, as I sat there under my umbrella watching, I shed a couple of tears.  No one saw me, thank goodness.  They might think I was nuts to cry over the deconstruction of a tree house.  But it was more than that.  It was watching my step-father walk around below the tree house, unable to climb a ladder anymore because of some health problems.  It was the thought of not having that house to visit anymore, my childhood home, gone, sold, belonging to someone else, a stranger who never knew the memories of that place.

It was the fact that I dislike change very much. I dislike watching people I love grow older.  I dislike saying goodbye.  I dislike the thought of them moving.  I dislike the thought of someone else moving in there, possibly knocking down those old beautiful trees, changing everything.  

I dislike the tree house being gone. It's final.  The beginning of a big change, an inevitable change, but a change I don't want to happen.

In the last few hours before the platform came down, it was evident that the tree did not want to let go of what was left of that tree house.  It had literally become a part of the tree.  Boards and cables were grown into the tree itself.  Matt sawed, hammered, pulled, pounded, and sawed some more to get it loose.  We pulled and pulled, and eventually had to tie a rope to the platform and pull it down with a truck.  Finally, after a few pushes to the gas pedal, the last boards came crashing down. 

It was done.

The space left where the tree house once was is so lonely, so unnatural.  As I stood there under that now open space, the story of The Giving Tree came to me.  The big Elm gave 40 years of it's life to cradling that tree house.  It supported it, shaded it, kept that tree house sturdy so many children could enjoy it.    While the children played in the house of that tree, I can only imagine that the tree was happy.  It smiled down on those laughing children, enjoying it's shade and massive support.  But as the children grew and moved away, the tree grew lonely.  Soon the tree house was empty, and that tree was cradling an empty shell, a shadowy reminder of the once happy and vibrant life which once surrounded it.   Though the children often came back, they had grown to old the climb into the tree.  It had served it's purpose. While it was happy to still provide shade and greenery, what it cradled was no longer needed. 

I imagine some day, after my family has moved away and new people take over, those big old Elm trees will be chopped down, no longer appreciated, seen as a danger in the wind.  The happiness they once provided will be just a memory.  

Maybe when I am an old woman, I will go back and visit that house some day.  The trees won't be there anymore, and the house may not be standing either.  But I will be able to stand where those trees once stood, and remember the old tree house which held the tree house I used to play in.  Maybe I'll have grand-children with me, and I can tell them about all the fun times I had playing up there.  Even though everything will be different, I can stand there, and be happy.  

**I am trying to find a picture of the tree house. When and if I find one, I'll post it**