Home? Oh…Me.
Posted: November 19th, 2010 | Author: Molly Monet | Filed under: happiness | Tags: California, children, family, home, six word fridays | 32 Comments »
Here's my Mom in 1971 when we bought the house. Don't you love her boots?
When I was four, we bought
Our home. I remember it well.
White stucco exterior, grey Tudor trim,
Avocado linoleum with matching painted bricks
Around the fireplace. In the kitchen,
Patriotic paisley wallpaper, our living room
Had silver paper with white flowers
Mirrored tiles in the dining room.
Natal plum bushes, night-blooming jasmine, bougainvillea
In the backyard with a view
What a view…the Pacific Ocean
on one side, mountains on the
other. But that wasn’t its magic.
It was the love that flowed
in every room, in every nook.
That was home for 31 years.
My sister and I have longed
To reproduce such a shangri-la for
Our kids, but as they say,
There is no place like home.
As I stand here in Massachusetts
I feel nostalgic, as if uprooted.
Home is where the heart is,
So where exactly is my heart?
With my divorce I considered moving
Back to my homeland of California.
Jonah dreams of adventures out West,
Like his grandparents did before him.
Layla only cares where I am.
What do I want?, you ask.
Be here now, Ram Dass said.
So here I am, in my
Happy Valley, during the academic year.
Christmases and summers in Cali, basking
In my family’s love. I am
Here and there and possibly everywhere
Because in the end I know
People can move, children grow up.
Yet my home, my true home
Can only reside inside of me.
* * * * * * * * * *
This week’s topic was provided, of course, by Melissa at Six Word Fridays. Please check out the other poems on the topic because this blog community has some very talented writers in it. As synchronicity would have it, Bruce, from the Privilege of Parenting, wrote a poignant piece this week called “Homeward Unbound” about visiting his childhood home and ailing father. In it he refers to his blog and the readers that visit it as a kind of home. I like that idea. Welcome home, my friends.
Related posts:
- Getting by with a Little Help from my Friend
- How We Treat Each Other Matters
- Ten Things I Like about My Job
Knowing that home comes from inside, well that is truly profound!
I love it.
Christine recently posted..Home
so true. so, so true. It’s all inside, isn’t it? If only we (I) could learn to listen to that home/wisdom within.
Tessa recently posted..Six Word Friday-Home
well said, sis! I get a warm feeling in my heart just looking at that picture.
Oh Tessa, it takes practice, daily practice, and since I have been far away from my roots for 16 years, I’ve had a lot of that practice.
this post. chills. in the best possible way.
xo
Thanks, babe! You’re part of my home here.
Oh honey, me too. We always have our memories.
Our paths mirror and cross, growing up in freezing or muggy Chicago and visiting California to suddenly wonder, as a six-year-old, why EVERYONE doesn’t live here… only to fall in love in, and with, New York, and then miss it so terribly that it took seven years to love LA… to truly live and love in LA, and twenty years in Day of the Locust land to really see that this is all home.
The more we grasp this the more all divorce might be peaceful, just a temporary readjustment in the eternal flux of all that is, and is right now.
Lovely to me as home here as there as anywhere (when for years I felt more or less comfortable everywhere but home nowhere). Namaste
Privilege of Parenting recently posted..Homeward Unbound
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Cooks Shop Here and Molly Monet, Molly Monet. Molly Monet said: Divorce can alter your home life, but this is what I have discovered. I make my own home. http://fb.me/MqB6eH2E [...]
We moved around a lot when I was growing up. I learned from that that home is where your people are. And you’re right, you make your own home. Thanks for inviting me.
Brook recently posted..Six Word Fridays- Home
We are fortunate when love flows through every room :) Thanks for sharing!
ayala recently posted..Home
That was beautiful. And your imagery was awesome. I totally felt the 70′s!
Colleen recently posted..Book of the Week- Driving My Tractor
Thanks for coming Brook! What’s a home, if you can’t share it?
Oh Ayala, I won the lottery with my family! There was always love to spare. Thanks for visiting my home!
Oh, our house was very 70′s. Funny era. They did change it over time, but that’s how I remember it.
Oh Bruce, it’s not easy to feel at home in LA. It was my home and yet growing up there as an intellectual, I felt like a fish out of water. It’s funny what we can miss, though.
All is well-Molly
I feel the same way too
I long for my chilldhood home
Often. What it represented. Safety. Love.
I agree completely – Home is for me where I am – where my soul sings and my heart resides. This is what I want to teach my daughter too – her home is not with me as much as it is within her and feeling the love that she is.
Happy Friday
That’s a good point, TE. I always tell Jonah not to miss someone or somewhere because the feeling that he has with that person or in that place can be found inside of him. Happy Friday to you too!
My heart is always pulled toward where I grew up, too. It means ‘home’ was created in a lovely way for us, I think, and you’ll do the same for your kids, wherever you are.
Amy @ Never-True Tales recently posted..Home is-
You’re poem is very bittersweet, Molly. But, who wouldn’t love those VIEWS! Oh my goodness! I like the picture too, very 70′s. You captured it.
Caroline recently posted..Isabella
My sister said that she almost didn’t read the poem because she loved that house so much she didn’t even want to think about it.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Amy. Its good for me to remind myself of that.
Home is right where you are.
Here and there and everywhere besides.
melissa recently posted..six word fridays- home
I love the picture! Our moms must have been friends! I, too, am a California native transplanted in the Northwest. The ex and I relocated as we didn’t want to raise our kids in Southern California. We lived in the LA area (Hacienda Heights) and then my dad wanted to escape the “rat race” and we moved to the mountains (Big Bear) when I was in 4th grade. I guess that was their dream. Though I’ve been in the Northewest for 16 years, I do consider California home. Im not sure if I’d ever live there again (probably couldn’t afford it!). Anyway, we had the white stucco house (didnt everyone?), though, my aunts house had the cool wood trim similar to your house in the picture! Brings back memories! Thanks for sharing!
Michele recently posted..The Fog
My parents lived in four different brand new houses in the 18 years that I lived with them. I lived in their current home less than a year. Home for me is where they are, where my love is, where my kids are and that could be anywhere. My kids have lived in our little house their whole lives and I will only leave it if another city beckons. I wonder if I have created an uneccesary attachment for them?
Thanks for sharing your memories of home!
Shawna recently posted..Home
Love the title and the last line.
Its interesting that you say that. Yes, there is attachment, but there is a sense of security and fond memories. If you move a lot, you might feel more losses but you do develop flexibility and resilience. Which is better? Both.
Thanks for sharing our common roots. We lived in the beginning of Malibu, right about the Getty Museum. Affordability is a big issue, and one of the main reasons that I stay here. But traffic and “rat race” also figure into it.
So what do I dream about last night after writing this poem? You guessed it. I was still living in this house as an adult.
i love that photo! (that’s you in it right?) it’s so wonderful that you have such cherished memories of “home” created in that house. that you and your sister want to provide that same sense of home for your children…i bet they do feel it from the love you give. (ok, sappy but true!)
Mel Gallant recently posted..six word fridays- home
That’s my mother forty years ago. I’m stylish but not that stylish.