As I ran through the newly paved residential streets behind a Target I could only think of the next suburban neighborhood that has yet to pop up to replace the long grass. I contemplate the lives that have yet to live in this place. The memories that will be created, the arguments that will be had. The lawns that will have swing sets and newly planted trees.
And my mind would drift to our own house, as our kitchen was being torn out. Once the room was bare and void of anything but old paint and cracked plaster, I thought of the time spent in this room. What of the memories in this room? The ones we’ve had, the ones of the two families before us. Questions and memories begin to pour out.
The time our daughter sat on the frozen turkey on the flow and spun herself around using a broom.
The laughs we had while making meals together.
What of the families before us? What story could these walls tell us of their time here?
Are these spaces just physical buildings that protect us from the elements?
Or do they have memories locked away in rooms?
More Than Ordinary Spaces
I referenced Gretchen Rubin’s book in a previous post but once again I found a gem in the book that helped me process where my head was going here. She writes that the rooms are just ordinary, it is our memories and our love that makes them remarkable.
We move from house to house each one keeping a collection of good and bad memories of our times there. The houses remain to be filled with more memories of someone else. Meanwhile, our memories remain frozen in both time and the walls, and that can only be seen by us.
Though the quote below contradicts what I just said about only being seen by us, I really enjoyed it. And maybe she is right, maybe it is out there floating around even if we are not here to remember it.
“If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place–the picture of it–stays, and not just in my memory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don’t think if, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened.”