As of last week, I've lived where I am now for eleven years. It's the longest I've ever lived anywhere in one continuous stretch.
Oh, I guess one could feasibly say I still lived in Beckley with my parents when in college, even though college was over 40 miles away and I was there five days out of the week, eight months out of the year. I personally don't think that time period counts... too much transition involved. I was a cocoon.
Anyway, this place has changed a bit over the years. There used to be a crabapple tree in the front which succumbed to a summer storm, and in another corner of the front yard, I got tired of mowing around a pine shrub so I cut it down and planted over the bare ground with grass. In the back, a swing set is gone and replaced with a half-assed garden (no real spring for two years in a row), and a fence separating the yard from US 119 rotted and fell. Various other plants coming and going, honeysuckle and English ivy battling it out along the periphery of the property. The honeysuckle appears to be winning.
Neighbors on both sides gone too, one set from death, the other from divorce. Others have since moved in. We're still here. We've been here almost twice as long as this house's prior occupants. We got their mail for years, and it just occurred to me we now haven't for a long time, long enough ago that I don't remember when it stopped coming. The mailbox itself was replaced a few years ago, the old one failing to rust and the elements.
The inside is in a more rapid state of flux than the outside, primarily because that's where we are most of the time and because nothing within can be viewed as permanent. Ultimately we live in a consumer society, and despite fighting that trend as hard as I can, plastic baubles and gadgets keep coming around, eventually breaking or becoming obsolete; and I swear I think these kids' toys have become sentient and are reproducing.
This is home — as much a part of me as my own foot, and the place I am most comfortable... despite, or maybe because of, the constant flux.
Over the last couple of weeks I've been getting away from home a bit and exploring the neighborhood from the back of a bicycle. I never really have before, but now that I have, I realize there's a lot going on in this sleepy little suburb. There are two houses at the far edges of the neighborhood I've never seen before, hidden by trees, one protected by a dog. There were three abandoned houses at the southeast corner when I started exploring, now there are two — a young couple has moved into one, baby in tow, cars with Harley Davidson plates in their driveway. I often see them sitting outside smoking cigarettes and they watch me quizzically as I whip around the corner in front of their new house.
On each lap through the neighborhood I pass a young pear tree loaded with fruit. It would be a simple matter to grab one as I pass and start munching, and I've been tempted several times. I still haven't done it.
Some evenings I have a companion of sorts — an elderly lady, maybe in her 70s or 80s, on a bicycle of her own. She does the same as I — just laps around the neighborhood, and each evening, we usually say hello when we pass for the first time. I passed her house this evening and she was out watering plants instead. She said, "I decided to take a break today!" and laughed. I told her I'd thought about it myself. 90° on the last day of summer? Ridiculous.
Various other characters out walking, kids playing, people walking their dogs. Yesterday I passed my neighbor as I was leaving the driveway — he had a can of Black Flag in each hand. "Found a yellow jackets' nest," he said, grinning (and pronouncing it yella-jackets), all geared up for battle.
These things have all been there, waiting for me to find them, enjoy them, capture them in my mind and in my heart. They've been there without my knowledge for all these years. I didn't realize how much I've missed being outdoors and how much I've always loved it — it has been, and is again becoming, as comfortable for me as being in my own house.
And all these things, too, are now part of my home. Home is, after all, where the heart is.