Taking Nothing but a Memory...

Miranda Lambert released a song entitled The House that Built Me recently which got me thinking. For the record, my wife turned me onto the song claiming that she knew I would like it. I wondered how she knew and when pushed, she simply said it reminded her of my childhood descriptions of home, metaphysically speaking I presume. My curiosity stemmed for the moment, I listened to the song. Her instincts were correct. Immediately, I related to the simple, yet mindful lyrics about a childhood home and the comfort derived therein. The home, built by the singer’s father, floods the songstress with childhood memories even though another family currently occupies the space. A simple look around is all she wants, perhaps to uncover pleasant memories hidden amongst the bricks and mortar, memories of comfort, security, and youth. The self-titled hook plays on the idea of one’s character in direct correlation to one’s environment; in this case, a positive and well remembered upbringing in a family home. I relate, as my wife first figured, because I remember vividly the houses that I called home over the years. More than that, I relate because I had a memorable childhood with all the smells, sights, and sounds that make a house a home

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The older I get, my feelings for home grow even fonder; not because I had some grand childhood but rather for reasons of the mundane. While my childhood was ordinary, it was filled with loving parents determined to see my bother and I grow in an environment they constructed and controlled. Perhaps that is why feelings are so fond when revisiting one’s childhood home. It has nothing to do with the structure at all and everything to do with the family that once dwelt within those walls. The memories elicit forgotten moments with loved ones; loved ones who no longer reside together, and abound regardless of time elapsed. I could argue that in these moments, time travel is not only probable but possible and often achieved whether you realize it or not. Who needs a flux capacitor when you can revisit your childhood by merely viewing a handprint in concrete, a measurement on a pantry door, or an inscription on a tree? Who needs a time machine when a smell brings it all back immediately and without the fire tracks or Libyans?



Thomas Wolfe made famous the notion that you can’t go home again in his novel of the same name. I tend to disagree. He penned the following:

"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back
home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the
country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed
everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time
and Memory."
Perhaps you can’t change your outcome, as Wolfe surmises, but you can always revisit the fondness of home regardless of misspent youth, failed glory, or disappointing fame. You can indeed go home again, as Lambert opines, if only for a memory or two. Just a thought!