We've left quite a few places in our quest for our 'forever' home. The things we've learnt are not to look back - not to go back. There's a special kind of poignancy - often pain - attached to revisiting the past, as seen through today's eyes.
Rarely, previous homes have been nearly destroyed or demolished by careless, soul-less occupants who followed in our caring footsteps.
One charmer of a tenant promised faithfully that our house would be professionally cleaned when she left. She omitted the word 'OUT'. All carpets and curtains disappeared, but unfortunately not so the two truckloads of her rubbish in the garage. A going-away present for us?
One house was totally demolished to make way for several units. We were unexpectedly happy with this. It was the home of our parents and it seemed fitting for its life to be over, as theirs were. Decades of family life memories remain intact, and so it lives on... as we knew it.
Twice we saved houses from certain death by deterioration. It took a great deal of blood, sweat and tears to make each of these old darlings into homes - but we had youth on our side, and a superb sense of 'making do' for as long as it took.
"I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance."
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night
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A Meme-oir Anthology
Short StoryA collection of memes, tales and quotes I have collected in the last couple of years. Older ones have come from my 'A Miscellany of Meme-oirs' and 'Seeking Serendipity', now being combined and added to newly created works in this 'A Meme-oire Anthol...
