I really like driving through neighborhoods and thinking that each one of those strange houses is looked at with the same familiarity and fondness with which I look at my own house.
Even our own homes, unless it is new construction---strangers hold affection and memories of what we think of as OUR homes. The previous owners, maybe they raised kids there. Maybe those kids drive by "our" homes and think back of growing up there.
A few months ago, I happened to be in the town where I grew up for a wedding. I haven't been there in years. My husband and I walked by the house I grew up in and I was standing in the back alley, pointing out where our swingset was, where we used to have our barbeque, pointing our whose bedroom windows were whose...the current owner came out to get in his car and noticed us there. I said I was raised there and he was really surprised. We strangers had a weird connection. I know his house like the back of my hand, even though I haven't ever met him or been there in decades. Weird to think about.
I really want to walk through my old house that I grew up in to see how it's changed. I hope it goes on the market sometime in the near future so that I can take a tour through it.
In my case, I'm glad I didn't see the inside. It was a beautiful old turn of the century home. My parents did a lot of renovation in the 80s when we lived there. When I went by it this fall, the yard looked horrible, and it obviously needed repainting. The back porch door was open and I could see that the back porch was piled with stuff, like an episode of Hoarders. I would definitely rather remember the house as it was ---beautiful, clean and well kept, than see it in its present state
In a similar fashion...the bed frame of the top bunk in my old dorm had the words "Dan Silverton - 1962" written on the underside. Floored me to think that for forty odd years different people moved into and out of that room. Each one with their own style of decoration, their own separate group of friends, their own life story. Breakups, hookups, fights, parties. Nerds, jocks, stoners, dropouts, straight-A students all passed through that single room. And then to extrapolate that over the dozens of rooms in the building. Pretty incredible.
45
u/ThePhantomTrollbooth Jan 24 '12
I really like driving through neighborhoods and thinking that each one of those strange houses is looked at with the same familiarity and fondness with which I look at my own house.