You Can Go Home Again

Once there was a way…to get back home again.

Last week I took a trip to my hometown and the town where I raised my kids.  It was a great girlfriend trip to a bed and breakfast, El Rocio,  and a workshop we did there getting in touch with our left brain, right brain.

We did an exercise where we smelled an unknown scent and then illustrated that on paper…no scissors…we had to tear the paper.  There were about 12 of us – all from the Valley and apparently we all identified it as a citrus smell which indicated a  collective memory.

This is my memory. (I know – such a masterpiece!)

An orange tree by my driveway. Parents out of town. Why not have a partaaaaaay? My yellow ford and someone jumping out of the car as someone else was backing out and a wrecked door that I somehow had to explain away. Obviously the truth never occurred to me so I said I was driving and didn't realize that the door was ajar. The big eye?  That was the neighbor who saw what happened and related the whole thing to the folks. Busted!   We got a little whiff of smell # 2 and this time we had to work with fabric and scissors.  At our lunch break we discussed the smell and the general consensus was it was an unpleasant smell – I didn't get the poop smell as some did but it did remind me of medicine from when I was little. Castoria – yuk.  Anyway it was fun and I was thrilled to learn that I had a brain. hahaha

The five of us who live up here in the hill country  had to go by our old houses.  I have two – the one where I grew up and the one where we lived raising our kids.  I didn't want to go by my childhood home – I thought it might be too run down and that would be depressing and my last few years there are lonely memories.  I did see my dad's old wrought iron shop or where it was – there's a What A Burger there now.  Barbara and Judy's house is also gone – the new Our Lady of Sorrows Church stands in its place.  Both of Patty's young and old houses looked fabulous, LaVerne's old neighborhood is being revitalized and I almost didn't go by my Wisteria house but the girls insisted and I'm glad they did.  The trees that we planted, oaks, mesquites and olive,  are enormous.

The red tile roof was torn off and a new metal roof being installed –

new windows going in and paint samples on the brick and oh my gosh the courtyard gone but my little churches I put there almost 30 years ago  were still on the wall all these years later.

 

Hanging askew under roof debris but still there.   On an impulse I went up to the open door and this is what I saw.

The doctor who bought our house for his parents still owned it and since then his dad had died and his mother moved into a nursing home so he was updating everything and moving in.  As I was getting all this info from the designer Judy came in and said "Can she have the churches?" What?!!! I would never have asked but the next thing I knew they were all loaded in the car and the lady give me a hug and said "God Bless".  And I cried.  I loved that house and the memories of our years there. I'm happy for it – happy it's being renewed. Happy the Amalguers had good times there and happy their son loves the house.

So my little churches that I left for Mrs. A are back with me – sort of my way of getting back home again. 

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things." Robert Brault

xoxo Nancy

I'm joining Beverly at How Sweet The Sound  for Pink Saturday. Ya'll have a great Thanksgiving – fill up on memories!