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closeGuest Column: My act of trespass: Revisiting a childhood home, memories
By Nancy Simpson/Herald guest columnist
I trespassed. Just before 11 o’clock on a recent Tuesday. It’s difficult for me to confess because I was simply walking into the backyard of my desert home. Okay, legally, it’s not my home anymore. Technically it’s not my parent’s home either. I broke the law and it made me wonder why I didn’t feel guilty.
Why do we yearn for home? Do I long for my desert, my house or the people at home?
Charles Dickens wrote, “Home is a word, it is a strong one. Stronger than a magician ever spoke of or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.”
Maybe if my childhood house was better cared for, I would see it blessing another family and thereby obtain closure. When I lived at the house it was a unique structure and a beautiful place. Desert roses bloomed in the front, its South Western charm was inviting and its proximity to the open desert made it quiet and peaceful. Now with the roses dead, the plaster peeling and the desert encroaching on the landscaping, my house appears to be dying. The death of the house contrasts with the living content of my memories.
It’s possible I remain possessive of the house because I don’t own my own home. It’s expensive to buy a home in Washington but compounded my expectation of a home for my family with my previous childhood palace and everything becomes a mess.
This brings me to a new point. Will my concept of home ever change? I grew up in the desert. The air is dry and light, the sun powerful and warm. I can smell the rain in the desert before the first raindrop soaks into the sand. I love Puyallup and have no desire to move, yet I ache for my desert home.
Most of us consider our home to be the place where we are surrounded by those who changed our diapers, those who knew us from school or those who never gave up on us even when we asked them. A Gnositc poem states, “I was the son of Kings and my free soul longed for its own kind.” I have found friends in Puyallup, yet can it become my home without the people who I once knew?
Happiness and contentment go hand in hand. I find I am happier in Puyallup when the desert is far from my thoughts. Life is comfortable entrenched in a routine and I prefer to let my memories of home fade.
As I sort through memories of childhood at least I have comfort in one fact: I live far away from my desert home and the temptation to trespass again is difficult to act upon.