Friday, January 31, 2014

Bye bye Bluebell.

A year and one day after I closed one chapter of my Californian life, I find myself saying goodbye to another house, but this time it is my childhood home.  I knew the day would come when eventually this small, semi-detached house would no longer be a haven for me (albeit only mentally seeing as I live 6,000 miles away).  I knew that day would come.  I just didn't know how sad it would make me.  I feel so far away.
Goodbye little red-brick house, you were my family's rock.

9 comments:

About Last Weekend said...

Oh sad, you must have had some times in that house - is that in Liverpool? It's sad when a home leaves the family and goes on to another life. Was that a recent photo...gosh they must have had some snow there.

Vinogirl said...

ALW: Yes, sad...but lots of good times, and yes, Liverpool. The photo was taken December 9th 1981...I still lived there then.

Do Bianchi said...

sorry to hear that, Vinogirl.

Two of us riding nowhere
Spending someone's
Hard earned pay...

New Hampshire Wineman said...

Vinogirl, as one who appreciates the roots of a 100 year-old grape vine, it doesn't surprise me that your heart planted in such a beautiful home should feel some pain at its being lost. It is the human condition, but sadly I think in America, we are losing that sense of belonging, history, and continuity.
My childhood home was destroyed, and with it, a part of me. Today I live in my home of almost twenty eight years and I doubt I'll ever leave! I feel planted!

Thud said...

Every mark in the old place told a story...but we are all still here so rejoice!

Thomas said...

My wife and I just figured out that our home in the Finger Lakes is for each of us the place we have lived the most years of our life: 30 years this month.

Then, we started to count the places we have lived since we met in 1972--eleven buildings in seven separate locations.

When I add the places I lived before we met and after I left the tenement in which I grew up, the total for me is sixteen buildings in ten locations (excluding the Air Force).

Out of all the places, the one where I spent the first nineteen years of my life remains indelible--that tenement in Brooklyn. I can see and feel every inch of it, from our ground floor apartment to the roof at the top of the five flights. It is now an upscale condo building. When I went back and saw it, I was shattered by the vacuity of gentrification--although, the building certainly looks a lot nicer these days...

New Hampshire Wineman said...

Thomas, I loved this, and you've mention the tenement in Brooklyn before, and I'm seeing that connection quite clearly!
By the way, the writing is a gift!

Thomas said...

Dennis:

Tenements are a thing of the past in NY City. It's one of those horrible city situations best left to gauzy memory--but I know what Vinogirl must be feeling. A part of us seeps into the walls of where we grow up, or maybe the walls seep into us. All the aromas and the gatherings of the people we love have a way of make the place just short of Nirvana.

Thomas said...

Oops--strike "have a way of" from that last sentence, which I thought I had done but the keyboard has its own idea of what I had done.