The Past-A Handmade Childhood

Thursday, June 10, 2010

The Past

Among the zillions of questions that come out of my 4 1/2 year old daughter’s mouth each day is an almost constant request for stories. Some of her favorites are stories about my husband and I when we were little. How strange and interesting to her little mind that we were once little like her, having adventures like her, learning and growing like her. It ties us together, those stories, in a magnificent way. Connected to the past, embracing the present, and looking forward to the future occurs naturally and with ease through the stories of our lives, and our dreams for the future.

Recently, when visiting the childhood town of my husband we stopped by the home he lived in when he was her age. Many of her favorite stories of his childhood take place in this home and she is quite familiar with it in her imagination. The home is vacant right now and rumored to be scheduled for demolition. Despite this I have to admit that my design mind was racing with ways to turn it into a darling little happy home again. It has lots of potential don’t you think!

We explored the yard and the infamous playing spots of my husband and his band of brothers, peeked though the windows, and relived the stories of his childhood. I recommitted during this visit to the art of recording our past. Not just the events and joys of our lives together…but where we live those lives together. It may seem like just a place to live at the time…but to our children and their children it is the backdrop of our lives. A home is truly central to all that is our lives. And recording those homes with images and descriptions provides an instant and powerful connection between the past and the present. It is not just a picture of a house you once lived in…no, it is so much more.

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imaginationinparenting 21p · 772 weeks ago

wow. I can barely imagine what this must have been like for your kids, especially your daughter. amazing really. I grew up in close walking distance to the farm my dad grew up on and less than 1 mi from the farm my mom grew up on -- so those stories that we too loved to hear as children were of very familiar settings! And my parents still live in the home I grew up in and my husband's parents still live in the home he grew up in -- so the stories for my childre are also of familiar settings... I'm trying to imagine discovering these settings and can only imagine it would be a wonderful experience!!

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Maeghan · 772 weeks ago

Fabulous! We get the joy of returning to my husbands family homestead. It has been with us for over 120 years. I love the fact that my boys are the 6th generation of Miller Men to walk the land. Our family heritage whatever it may be must be kept and passed down to our children's children. Keep telling those stories Mama!

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Valarie · 772 weeks ago

What a lovely touching story. My kids ask questions all of the time too. This house looks like the perfect house to grow up in. Don't you feel like you just want to save it? One of the reasons I started my blog was to catch those little moments of living, both large and small, that we could look back on and say"This is how we spent our time together." This post hits home. It's so beautiful.

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