Just A House?

 Many of us have lived in a varied assortment of houses, that we have called home. For some, it may have been a dump and then for others a mansion. In my youth, our house was neither of these. Our house was simply home and had nothing to do with elegance or hardship. 

 Our house had grown with the generations that had inhabited it. The sounds of it’s creaks, strains and mysterious thumps, told us it lived and the sigh of a fresh breeze coming through an open window at night, was it’s breath. Our house kept us warm and safe and embraced us with contentment.

 Our house was also stylish and dressed with the seasons and holidays. It surrounded itself with it’s best colors during the fall and it’s walls radiated from the bright glow of it’s fireplace. Then finally, it was adorned in it’s most festive attire for Christmas. The hanging of rich garlands and twinkle lights from every space gave radiance to even the darkest corner. Finally, in the heart of the house, was the majestic evergreen symbolizing life, hope and a new bicycle.

 Then the annual banquets of flavors and aromas rising from it’s Thanksgiving kitchen, 4th of July barbeques and of course, Sunday dinners. The aroma of bacon, waffling through the house on a Saturday morning and the smell of Mom’s famous pot roast in the evening. Our house was a daily celebration of culinary love and sharing.

 Time is more fragile than memories and as such, changes. The paint will peel and the plumbing will weaken. The roof has done it’s best and the electrical nerves of the structure begin to fray. The house I grew up in has been abandoned for years now and after an absence of many decades, I once again find myself standing on the front curb staring at a weathered and stained front door. I stand there waiting for Dad to come out and pitch with me before supper, or maybe I hear my dog scratching to get out to come run with me. Memories now held in trust within those failing walls. Is it just a house? My tears tell me no.

In the beginning was the earth.
And it was beautiful.
And Man lived upon the earth.
And Man said: “Let us build skyscrapers, dams, factories and express ways.”
And Man said:
“It is good.”

On the seventh day, Man perished.
And the earth was quite and deathly still.
For Man was no more.
And it was good!

    It never ceases to amaze me how nature attempts to protect our kids from us while they are growing up. They start off by being birthed with a completely different language. This is meant to give them a couple of years head start before we contaminate them with our gooder grammar.

    While still infants they use a natural defense mechanism of continual bowel release and dispersement which can be very effective on certain of our timid species. This is meant to keep us at arms lenght from them. Then there is the incessant crying which is meant to be a catalyst and unnerve many of us in the hope we might abandon them in the local pine preserve for the wolves to raise. This becomes a love and hate issue.

     If we survive their terrible “twos” and have resisted not eating them, then there occurs a few years of calm and serenity. It is during these years that our young children study us! They continuously ask questions and debate with us. They’re looking for flaws and weaknesses!

     Then they reach their teens and go rabid. They roam continually looking for things that are not there and blaming you for hiding whatever it is they can’t remember they lost. They become lost in their mirrors as they try to correct nature’s achievements with their own fashionable absurdities. They don’t like what they look like, who they are, who you are or even more confusing…..what they are! They are maturing.

     Through all their emotional and biological tirades, if we can but teach them one basic premise…..‘right from wrong‘…..then we have succeeded.

     Your greatest hope and success will be the day they finally walk out your front door to take on the world or just lay down on the sidewalk and wait for the SWAT team to show up.