my house

This has been the most difficult story to wrap my brain around. I wanted to write about the house I grew up in, yet it was really the land that raised me.

In nature, I felt a part of everything. Back then, I didn’t know the concept that we are all connected, but it was in the woods and pastures was where I felt nourished, accepted and at peace.

So, returning to that place after over 50 years, I feel a desire to honor the ways in which I was nurtured by this land and the transformation we have both experienced.

My descriptions won’t really matter to you, they are more for me in case I develop dementia! It’s enough to know, this is where I grew up, played, rebelled, left for college, and returned home once, to get married. The woods and fields of our land and the farmland next door are all connected. I roamed freely between them and was delighted to do so again.

My cousin and the woman who owns the house are friends. He told her I was visiting. She welcomed me with grace and kindness. Her name is Elaine and she’s in her early 80’s. She gave me permission to explore and even gave me a house tour. She has been there for over 40 years and is as attached to the land as I was.

From the old photo, one can see how treeless the land was. The house itself was an old hunting cabin that my parents winterized when we moved in. The garage on the right side of the photo is now a 3-horse barn.

On that same side, down the hill, one can see my cousin’s white farmhouse, from the previous story.

Behind the house, 30 feet of grass and Hemlock trees gives way to a steep drop-off into a ravine with a spring fed brook.

I played at that brook for hours, catching minnows in a saucepan and watching the water skaters.

Their tiny feet make circular dot shadows on the streambed.

To the west, a grove of White Pines had been planted in rows. When I was growing up, they were about thirty feet tall and felt like giant columns with soft needles forming a carpet beneath.  It was here that I had my first wedding. Those pines have now reached a height of sixty feet. Not all twenty of them have survived.

To the south of the grove, my dad and I planted about fifty, six-inch Scotch Pine saplings. Those that have not succumbed to the fungus are now well over 45 to 50 feet in height.

Now, the horses have carte blanch to graze the entire acreage of lush grasses.

I learned that when Elaine decides to move to a place with less maintenance, my cousin will add the adjoining land to his beautiful farm.

So, I walked and photographed and fondly remembered. Thank you, Elaine.