This is the house I spent all my summers in with my parents and godparents when I was growing up.   I’m a very nostalgic person and during every trip I take to MV I pass by this house and smile.   I was writing in my journal one evening after passing by the house and these words spilled from my pen onto the paper.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

          The House

 The old house saw her walking down the road, the woman was grown up now but the house remembered her as a child.  The woman wasn’t alone.. there was a man and a young girl with her, they were her family.  As they neared the house the woman pointed at it and you could see glimpses of memories in her eyes.  She knew this house well.. many happy hours of her childhood were spent here.   Suddenly they were gone, so fleeting a moment after so many, many years.  The house knew she did not look the same as she had all those years ago… her paint was faded and peeling and her rooms seemed small and dingy… she felt old and neglected.

A few years later a car approached slowly… could it be… yes, inside was the woman but she was alone this time.  The car stopped and she stared at the house.. a smile appeared on her face… she was remembering the people who once lived there and for an instant they were there again.  Then the woman was gone…  the old house sighed.

Years passed and from time to time out of nowhere the woman would appear and stop in front of the house if only for an instant.  It seemed as if something was left undone.  The house stood there waiting year after year.

Then it happened.  A car drove by slowly… it returned minutes later and stopped.  The door opened and the woman got out… she approached the house with great anticipation.  She was pleased to see that the house was freshly painted, it made her happy.  She engaged in conversation with a girl on the porch and then suddenly she was entering the house after more then 40 years… it was quite a moment.  The house wondered what the woman would think of her… time does take its toll and she was afraid she would not be as the woman remembered her!

The woman thought to herself “the rooms seem so much smaller.. or is it that I’m bigger… so many things have changed but I am seeing what was here not what is here now.”  Once or twice however something did seem the same… a faint aroma… the slant of the bathroom ceiling… the curve of the staircase… the white iron beds… the secret room beneath the stairs…  a creak.

It was but a moment in time, the reunion of the woman and the house but somehow their bond would never be broken and neither would forget the other.