The homes of your childhood

Date: 
23 July, 2011

How do you feel about the homes you have lived in?

Were you an ‘armed forces kid’ who saw a succession of different houses every couple years, barely remembering some of them? A third generation farm kid who saw your grandparent’s hard work in every board and shingle? An inner city child who lived in cookie-cutter apartments?
 
Memories of houses are percolating in my head as I prepare to leave the one that has been home for over 20 years. That’s longer than I lived in my childhood home (Google Street View below), yet the childhood home still holds a stronger emotional pull.
 
Screen shot 2011-07-23 at 4.47.56 PM.pngA home’s central role in the emotional landscape of our lives is most evident when we reflect upon our formative years. Childhood homes trigger great emotional outpourings because they are the sites where we first dream, imagine, and play. A home’s interior is, in the words of French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, “the human being’s first world.”  
 
It therefore comes to embody that person’s world view. 
In moments of recognition, the commonplace details of a dwelling resonate with significance beyond utilitarian function. A sunny wallpaper triggers tears; the squeak of a closet door reopens childhood treasures. Childhood memories become imprinted in a floral linoleum. For the rest of our lives, these places are where “our unconscious is housed,” according to Bachelard. 
 
Of course, a house is not a static repository of memory, a photo album made of drywall and wood.   Over time, change is inevitable. That linoleum is covered with hardwood. Hardwood covered by carpet.
 
Layers of memory, layers of meaning.
 
For every loss there is a renewal.
 
My fondness for the plain (and tiny, by today’s standards) bungalow where my parents raised five kids is inseparable from the character of my childhood itself. Thinking about the house fills me with gratitude. It reminds me of a prototypical ‘happy childhood’ where home meant comfort, warmth and love.
 
Having accumulated some worldly experience, I realize now that such memories are a privilege not shared by everyone. Yet each of us can, I presume, see in our childhood homes a good part of what we have become.

 

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Comments

The Moments of Our Lives Should be at Our Homes

Submitted by Anonymous on 29 August, 2011 - 20:35.

I love this article. It reminds me of an article I wrote a couple of years ago called, The Moments of Our Lives Should be at Our Homes. If we treasure our time at our homes, they'll accumulate so many more strong memories.

From the other side of the school yard.

Submitted by Anonymous on 18 August, 2011 - 07:24.

Lorne, The trees are bigger, but the houses have stayed the same size, despite the layers of experience deposited within by the families who've called them home. How is that? You should be able to read the history of these homes like the growth rings in trees. But memory and imagination are invisible, at least until someone writes about it. I only lived on 46 Street until I was 10, but the memories of that home and neighbourhood still resonate. *** Laura (Sawyer) Wershler

The grand view

Submitted by Lorne on 18 August, 2011 - 07:42.

Yes, so true Laura. I wrote a longer article a few years ago in a (now deceased) Toronto magazine about the layers of meaning in a home, using the Grandview house as an example. I still associate you with 46 St :) It was a great neighbourhood and has held up pretty well over the years.

A lovely piece.

Submitted by Anonymous on 30 July, 2011 - 08:47.

A lovely piece. My father was in the navy and we moved every two years. The place that was imprinted on me -- or maybe the reverse is true? -- was a house we lived in when I was in grades one and two. I dream of it still. And Bachelard has much to say about how we are shaped by our dreams of home, the geographies of specific places, the first nest.

homes

Submitted by Anonymous on 23 July, 2011 - 19:05.

When I read your article, a panorama of memories flashed through my mind of the many houses in three different countries that I've called home in my lifetime. Thanks for the memories.

MMK