random thoughts – Day 1,526 – (Thursday) – home nostalgia

It’s interesting and surprising to me the emotion that a photo can trigger. Anytime I see a photo of Moose or Winston my heart aches. I miss them so much. That isn’t really surprising. The surprise is when I get all mushy over a picture of a house.

Tonight, the trigger was a photo of my ranch house in Tennessee. I’m surprised at the level of nostalgia I feel for the house in the city I couldn’t wait to flee. “The 402”, so named because that was the house number, was 1,200 square feet on the main level with a full basement with garage under and an attic. And a long driveway and lots of parking, which was handy both times I had a party.

The 402.

The 402 had hardwood floors and fireplaces in the main level and the partially finished basement. The dining room had a large window that overlooked the woods out back with turkeys and deer and the occasional fox. The living room had a large window facing the sloped lawn and the street beyond it, with turkeys, deer, an owl, and the occasional fox. The front porch was concrete and wide enough for comfortable seating, unlike the porch at X2’s house which was so shallow that your knees would be skinned on the porch rails when you sat in a chair.

When I walked into The 402, I knew it was “the house.” It offered privacy and views, and proximity to everything. I used to go home for lunch nearly every day. Located at the top of a hill, there was just a tiny puddle during the flood of 2010 that had the houses further down the street under water up to the porch gutters. If I could have picked up that house and taken it with me when I left, I might have. Sometimes I think I should never have left.

The 402 isn’t the only previous residence I miss. The house that X1 and I had in Fitchburg was a version of my dream house. It was a 1600 square foot Victorian style built in 1920 with stained glass windows in the double front doors, kitchen with floor to ceiling storage, dining room, and a huge living room with nine windows and fireplace. It took two steps into the place for me to fall in love with it, even with the hideous paint and linoleum on the countertops. I felt it like a hug.

On the verge of a divorce, my first apartment alone was in a quiet neighborhood in Worcester, back in the time when rents were affordable and a person making $30,000 could afford rent alone. There was a large kitchen with pantry, sewing room, small living room, guest room, and large bedroom. There was off street parking. It was the right size in the right place at the right time and it represented freedom and control over my own situation. Again, the minute I entered the place, I knew it was the right place for me.

Years later, after ending a five-year relationship where the guy and I lived together for three of the years, I moved back to Worcester to an even cooler apartment in a brick building on Elm Street that was built in 1899 and close to historic Elm Park. It took about three seconds to fall in love with the building with a wrought iron cage elevator that stopped on the landings between floors. There were hardwood floors, and a large dining room with a built-in china cabinet with a pass-through window to the pantry off the large kitchen. The massive living room had a working fireplace. I had a sewing room, a spare room, and a walk-in closet. The affordable rent included heat. I have never lived so large. Even still.

The BungaLowell is smaller than any of the previous domiciles. And different. Cute. More expensive, but that is partly the effect of time and place, and everything is pricier nowadays. Everything. Even with all the expenses included, it’s still less expensive than rents which keep climbing. Thank goodness for buying before the hikes of prices and rates in recent years.

Sometimes I think I shouldn’t have left some of the places I once lived. I stalked the second Worcester apartment building online when I first moved back from Tennessee. The Fitchburg house came on the market around the time I bought The BungaLowell and I imagined buying it back until I looked at the photos. The things I loved most about the house had been “improved” away. The kitchen was stripped of character and the amazing cabinets and drawers. A bathroom had been remodeled with a tub set under the sloped ceiling that looked like a major concussion hazard.

Sometimes, when there is nothing more pressing to ponder (and because I live alone and have nobody to talk to) I wonder. What if I had never left? What if I went back? But it wouldn’t be the same. The cities are different. The dwellings are different. The economy is different. More importantly, I am different. Everything is different. As Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.”