My brothers and I in front of our house. Can you guess the decade?
My mother sold her house a few weeks ago, during those last frenzied days of the $8,000 tax credit. I moved into the house when I was three months old (born in Fort Knox, can you believe that?) and it’s the only house I grew up in.
If everything goes as planned, she will have moved out before I have a chance to go back to Baltimore and say goodbye. I thought I would be very sad about this. In fact, not so much.
It’s not that I don’t have a lot of warm, wonderful memories of the home. But, I’ve learned that I’m simply not that attached to places. After leaving my Baltimore home, I moved at least once a year, every year, until I turned 30. While I’m terribly nostalgic, that nostalgia is not really rooted to a particular address.
It occurs to me that this is, in part, because of my Jew-iness. So much of my childhood home is right here, in Western Massachusetts, in the rituals, melodies and foods that filled my young life. When I light shabbat candles with my daughters, or grant their pleads for seconds of noodle kugel, or listen to Zoe waltz through the house singing Dayenu, I’m here, I’m there, I’m at my great grandmother’s house in Boro Park, and I’m across the ocean in Poland.
In a week we celebrate our people’s origins as travelers. Whether wandering through the wilderness to receive the Torah, or hiking up to Jerusalem to offer baskets of fruit, we have always been on the move, and only sometimes because someone kicked us out. So, Mazal Tov, mom, for carrying on the tradition. We can’t wait to try out the new pool in the apartment complex!
Amen to that!! My parents moved a few years ago, after being in the only house I knew for 34 years, also having moved in when I was just a few months old. I was a little sad, but only a little.
My Mom always says, “Home is where your stuff is.”
lovely post, amy. i really liked the connections that you made while reflecting. it sounds like an excellent way to make those same connections for your girls! mazels to your ima!
Hey Ames- your mom sold the house? Wow. It’s weird visiting my parents in a condo, but the stuff is all the same, so it still feels like home (although with no basement to escape to..).
No nostalgia for the Elephant House? Awwwww….