Far, Far Away

I wonder how far Robey thinks the distance is to his school. I asked him once when we were talking about Grandpa Buddy being far, far away.

-Is the cottage in Michigan far, far away?

-Yes.

-Is Uncle Beau's house far, far away?

-Yes.

-Is your school far, far away?

-No.

It's about a 15-minute drive down one main road and a few side roads. On the way there, Robey points out the landmarks he knows. There's the dirt movers, he says. There's my eye doctor. Mom, that's where we bought my pants. Look, there's my dentist! He gets excited about the dentist, but he's confused about the eye doctor. He thinks the Presbyterian Church across from the medical building is the eye doctor's office, and I can't convince him otherwise.

He's mapping out his world on that drive to school and back everyday while I map out my past.

I think of all the things that I could point out to him from my past. Look, there's the field where some friends and I got lost when we were ten. There's the wooded lot where we drank beer in high school. There's the new bike path they built when I was in college ...

Past all of those things, we also pass the road I lived on when I was Robey's age.

The house I live in today with my husband and my two boys is the same house that my parent's built and moved us to when I was five. So we drive that distance everyday: from my home of residence and also the home I grew up in to the home of my earliest childhood memories.

You see what I'm saying when I talk about far, far away?

In 1978 when my parent's moved us from one school district to the next, the distance to me was great. They were moving us away from the neighbor boy with the bike called Big Blue, away from the purple hydrangeas blooming in the side yard and away from the blacktopped street that stained my shorts with tar in the summer.

As an adult, I've moved from Ohio to Mississippi, from North Carolina to Arizona, from Illinois to Ohio, and a dozen other moves in between. But let me tell you, the distance from there to where I am today is not nearly as great as the distance we moved when I was a kid.

I'm not saying I was traumatized. Not at all. I'm just saying the distance of a move - any move - is large in a child's mind. What matters is that the things we moved to when I was five far outweighed the things we left behind. We moved to the country, to open fields, to damp creek beds and doting grandparents right next door. We moved to a better school district, to land with roots and to the place I still call home. These are the same things we moved Robey to when we decided to move back to Ohio.

This house and the land that surrounds it is the place my parent's called home. It's the place my grandparent's called home. I hope it's the place my children will always call home.

I woke up this morning in this home with the season's first snow covering the ground and thought to myself, "I love to look out these windows and see the snow in November. I love the warmth of this house when there's snow on the ground in the morning." We have such high ceilings here, and I've been feeling a chill all week long. But this morning? This house was warm.

Robey calls our home the red house. I've asked him if he remembers the house we lived in before we moved here, the house in Illinois that he lived in until he was 18 months old. He doesn't. And you know he doesn't remember the house in Tucson where we lived for six weeks when he was first born. We have photos of those places and memories there, and we sometimes miss their walls and roads and neighbors. Occasionally we think about what might have happened if we'd stayed there, if we hadn't moved back to Ohio. But those houses. They were far, far away.

They were far, far away from family. Far, far away from here.

Here is where we belong. This place. This place right here is home.

Comments

[david]

What a beautiful post. Thanks.

[Marcy]

Wow!
I'm glad your home instead of far, far away too! I'm pretty sure Rob and Max are happy about it and I know shortly Owen will be also!!

[Mich]

That was nice for Thanksgiving. I am thankful, too, that you guys are here in Ohio.

I know what you mean about "landmarks" in and around Ontario/Mansfield. However, I DO say them outloud to Stan. I'm not sure that he appreciates it. And sometimes he accuses me of "taking the long way" just so that I can tell a story about every other field or house or road we pass along the way.

[Joe Greene]

Fantastic post, Alison. One of my favorite authors, Gene Logsdon, titled his memoir _You Can Go Home Again_. He left his home in Wyandot County, Ohio when he was younger than you and didn't return until he was older than you. You're one of the lucky ones.
Joe

[jen]

You give me the warm, fuzzys inside. Cheers to being 'home' or wherever your heart is.

[jen]

I would ride around anyday with you, babydoll, and listen to all your stories. I love taking the scenic route and it makes my hubby mad because we might get a detour (lost) along the way, but that is what life is all about. What are we here for if not to see the beauty our creator made for us?

[Alison]

I'm thankful for all of you and your kind comments. Enjoy your holiday weekends.