Dear House,

Taken from 'Spirit' Magazine, by Melinda Mahaffey --> as i was on my flight back to the bay ... i thought this was quite fitting b/c it describes my frustrations and attachments and ideals of 'HOME'


I am afraid for you. Mom and Dad have decided to sell. The kids are moving out, and it's time for retirement. A lot of the houses in our neighborhood have been torn down in the last few years to make way for McMansions that dominate .... and I'm afraid that this will be your fate as well. I don't understand people who so carelessly destroy a house, b/c a house is more than bricks and mortar. You have been the receptacle of our memories and our dreams.

I don't know if everyone has such an affinity for the house where they grew up. Do they dream of it still, or have they just passed on to their next abode, without thought for what they have left behind? Yes, I know I'm too old to be attached .... but we always made our way back to you. In the midst of change, you were the one constant in my life - the string that kept me from floating off. You were the place that kept me rooted to the ground, the acre that gave me a hometown when all my meager possessions were packed into a 9-year-old's cardboard boxes.

Can it really have been so long? When i look back, I can see ... the small walled garden that was overgrown with bamboo, a mini-jungle that i was afraid to walk into just in case there was snakes waiting to get me ... All of these things have disappeared over the years in the name of remodeling. But even though you have changed, the essence of you, which is buried deep in me, has stayed the same.

The funny thing is, you have changed me too, changed me in a thousand tiny ways. Through the years of blind habit, I hand my clothes backward in foreign closets b/c your close rails are reversed. I automatically lower the showerheads to shoulder height in hotel bathrooms b/c I'm now taller than the fixture that towered above my head when I was little.

As I grew up, you protected me through storms. Not only the dramatic ones that passed through ... but also the storms in life: the school exams, breakups, and painfully earnest teenage years. You have have listed to my phone conversations and never gossiped about what you've heard. But more than that, you have give me the courage to go out into the world b/c I've know that you would take me back, w/o question and w/o judgement. A girl could not ask for more.

Now I see that I'm more afraid for myself than for you - selfishly afraid that when you're gone, I will have no home. I've skipped around the world and returned again; you string became the rubber band that snapped me back.

I imagine that for some years in the future, I will drive by just to see you, to make sure your new owners love you as we loved you. But know that whatever happens, I will carry you with me. You are the bricks and mortar of who I am, the still point in a world of chaos.



Thank you 2125 Sea Cliff Way. one day i hope to buy you back :)