on nostalgia and homesickness

There’s something about being within the landscape I grew up in, especially in the muted winter. The cold creek that smells like wet rocks, bright stars in the inky night sky, and blazing fires in a big stone fireplace.

I couldn't get enough of it on this trip back to Virginia – especially the landscape. The slope of the rolling hills, the stripped-down winter palette, the curve of the dirt roads. Clearly, I am getting more sentimental. It's easy and seductive to imagine yourself inserted back where you became who you are. So on the plane ride back out to California, this passage from The Solace of Leaving Early by Haven Kimmel – when a preacher is struggling to craft his sermon – stopped me dead in my tracks.

“That wasn’t really what he wanted to say. What he was aiming for was nostalgia, heartache, homesickness. Or stranger yet, the heart’s desire to return to someplace it had never been. He thought of his own bizarre tendency to long for other lives…

Why does this happen to us? Because we have abandoned an infinite number and variety of pure possibilities, and perhaps they live alongside the choices we did make, immortalized in the cosmic memory. Perhaps there are unknown lives walking alongside ours, those paths we didn’t take, and we reach for them, we ache for them, and don’t know why.”

barn nostalgia

This might seem like cheating, but a lot of people have recently asked me about the barn I grew up in, because I wrote about it in Weekend Handmade. I also talked about it a little in the NPR interview.

So what does this barn look like, people ask? Well, here is a post I wrote a while back in March 2009.

When I had Heather Ross here the other week talking about growing up in Vermont, I got to thinking about my own childhood in Virginia, and asked my mom to send me some photos.

I actually got teary when I saw them. I’m not sure why, because this barn is as familiar to me as my own face. When I’m at home in Virginia and come across old pictures, they’re all in the context of this crazy family adventure that resulted in an amazing house and really special childhood. But when I see them on my computer in my perfectly normal apartment in San Francisco, the imagination and perseverance that it required of my parents comes into clearer focus. They decided to move out of the city, buy a 200-year-old hay barn, move it piece by piece to some land they bought, and re-assemble it into a home. They did this without much money, largely on their own (helped plenty by a volunteer crew of friends and family), so big wheels lived side-by-side with cement mixers.

This next one (below) is my favorite. At some point, the saw in the background moved upstairs, outside of my parents bedroom. Where it stayed until I was in high school. The barn was always a work-in-progress, and I guess that's the thing about childhoods. You don't know that it isn't exactly normal to play with dolls in the middle of a building site until you get a little older.

I love the barn like she is a person. We spent my whole childhood growing up together and uncovering who we always were. In some ways, I’d like to be more like her: a purposeful old soul with a big heart in a simple setting, who can weather any transformations that come her way.

cornholetastic

When we were in Virgina, my Vermont sister Brooke couldn’t stop rejoicing at the smell of things growing and the green, green leaves. We all kept drifting outside to sit on the deck, walk to the pond, play tennis, and play cornhole (I know that sounds gross, but that’s what it’s called, y’all. I didn’t make it up).

We played on Mom and Dad’s homemade cornhole boards into the chilly evenings with gin and tonics in hand.

The newest generation of cornholers are naturals. My almost-three-year old nephew debuted an unorthodox, but surprisingly effective form. If I figure out how to post video, I'll show you the evidence.

oh virginia

image from etsy's dearpumpernickelJust back from a long weekend at the barn with my two sisters to celebrate my parent’s 40^th wedding anniversary. When I walked out of the airport, it was 80 degrees and pouring that warm spring rain that smells so good. It almost felt like my cells recognized it.

I know that sounds woo-woo, but I think once that weather is in your bones, it’s there forever. Back soon with more details.

barnlife

When I had Heather Ross here the other week talking about growing up in Vermont, I got to thinking about my own childhood in Virginia, and asked my mom to send me some photos.

I actually got teary when I saw them. I’m not sure why, because this barn is as familiar to me as my own face. When I’m at home in Virginia and come across old pictures, they’re all in the context of this crazy family adventure that resulted in an amazing house and really special childhood. But when I see them on my computer in my perfectly normal apartment in San Francisco, the imagination and perseverance that it required of my parents comes into clearer focus. They decided to move out of the city, buy a 200-year-old hay barn, move it piece by piece to some land they bought, and re-assemble it into a home. They did this without much money, largely on their own (helped plenty by a volunteer crew of friends and family), so big wheels lived side-by-side with cement mixers.

This next one (below) is my favorite. At some point, the saw in the background moved upstairs, outside of my parents bedroom. Where it stayed until I was in high school. The barn was always a work-in-progress, and I guess that's the thing about childhoods. You don't know that it isn't exactly normal to play with dolls in the middle of a building site until you get a little older.

I love the barn like she is a person. We spent my whole childhood growing up together and uncovering who we always were. In some ways, I’d like to be more like her: a purposeful old soul with a big heart in a simple setting, who can weather any transformations that come her way.