My grandparents house/my childhood home sits on a hill in the south-eastern most county of South Dakota, and I had gone to elementary and junior high in the closest town, Alcester. The house sits on three acres surrounded by miles of farmland in all directions. Our land has been combed over and over by my brother and me through one million adventures in our childhood. We rode the riding lawn mower over every inch of it in the summer; the horse I'd owned for a year had inhabited the acre in the back, where I'd gone out every afternoon to clean and feed her. The apple orchard to the south of the house is where we'd picked fruit for cobblers and pies and sauces. There had been gardens and discovered wild strawberry patches, a fallen tree with a family of baby raccoons, and acres that seemed like miles of land to roam while playing gypsies. It was more than a home - it was nutritious soil to develop our creativity and resourcefulness.
The house itself and the enormous garage next to it, as well as the towering metal windmill with its deep ground water well, had all been built by some relative on my dad's side. The house is very big, with secret rooms and small curious doors hidden behind closets and in the corner of the nursery. It's a unique house, and I remember when we moved in when I was 8, we had to repaint the whole house because every room was a different Easter Egg pastel. The upstairs is all hardwood, and would echo with laughter and shouting between my brother's room and mine. The main floor was warm and bright with window-covered walls. My dad thought himself a wall-papering master, so a few of the rooms had been covered with whatever he considered trendy at the time. My grandparents, who remodeled and updated the whole house when they moved in, had to recover the walls to their taste, too. Now the house is simple and classic and clean. All wood floors except in the living rooms and main bedroom, where thick white carpet is laid. The walls are a soft white or pale green, and all new appliances rest where our older versions used to reside. The windows, heating/cooling, roof, and doors were all replaced when they moved in.
And yet, it's still been home every weekend when I could wander back from college. It's where my dad lived for a while after my parents got divorced. It's where the family convened for activities. It's the only home I've had in the area since my mom and dad both moved away a few years ago, and it's where preparations for both weddings and funerals have taken place. It's where both of my dogs are buried. The rocks sing of thunder storms and hard lessons learned and first crushes and painful memories and laughter and birthdays and Christmases and monkey bread and radiator heat and directorial debuts on our home video camera all took place. In the summer, fire flies sparkle the corn and bean fields and our back yard each warm, muggy night. The grass is still spotty where our hammock swing used to hang from a tree. The clothes line was there when we moved in, and it still gets used. The north porch is beautiful, and nobody ever used it, except to play house in the summer sometimes. When we moved there, my dad unearthed old wooden wagon wheels and bits and pieces of objects left behind by someone from the 1800s. The mulberry tree died and is gone, which was a shame because I used to stain my feet and fingers plucking black, bleeding mulberries and sour red mulberries alike from the tree.
I fear the ghost of my father still treads the grounds, throwing a baseball, starting a fire, mowing the lawn, thinking, joking, laughing. Of all the things, it's his ghost I don't want to leave behind.
My memories of my life, my childhood, my family, my lessons, my growth, all embody themselves in some way on this land. Memory recall has imprinted itself into every corner and every floorboard and every squirrel and strand of grass and apple and cloud of dust off the gravel road and coil of smoke from a bonfire and roll of thunder and scent of life and death and ray of heat or blow of snow at 30706 480th Ave. These things created me, and are the soap scum residue that I can't and won't ever be able to scrub from my skin and being and soul. It's this place, this house and land, that acts like a time capsule or treasure chest or memory box, holding it all together so I can come back and stand under its shower of memories whenever I forget who I am and need to be poured down on again with the saltiness of memories. So I wonder - if I can't bathe myself in memories anymore, can't use the replay of lessons and moments from way back when to wash away the hard new lessons of the hear and now - when I can't wander home, climb into bed in my childhood bedroom, can't wake up to the smell of breakfast in my childhood kitchen, and can't lay in the warm grass and read books in my backyard... how will I center myself to who I was, when all I have now is who I am?
