Summer is a season for travel. We pack up the car for a family trip, join friends for a long weekend, or take some time for ourselves. We head far away, or stay nearby. We find no shortage of places to rest our heads — campsites, country inns, and guest rooms (or couches) of friends and family.
We are a species of wanderers. And we have devoted a lot of energy — literal and figurative — into allowing for our movement across land and sea. Modernity has given us the means of leaving home with an ease that would have shocked our ancestors. And that has meant many of us have spent large parts of our lives far away from where we grew up and the families that nurtured us.
An array of new technologies means we can stay in touch — even see each other’s faces and talk in real time — despite being separated by thousands of miles. But this digital immediacy still lacks the power of being in person.
For all of our conveniences, there is something special about home, a link to people and a physical place that loom large in our memories. For those of us blessed with happy childhoods, the rooms in which we lived, grew, and tried to figure out our place in the wider world are sources of pleasant reminiscences. We can recall with a smile sights, sounds, and the warmth of loved ones, even those now long gone.
For today’s A Reason To Smile, we are sharing a song that touches on these feelings in an evocative way. It is courtesy of country superstar Miranda Lambert. As with many of our selections, we understand there may be some misty eyes as well as grins.
Life requires leaving the past behind, even as we yearn to find ways to return.
Please consider subscribing if you aren’t already a member. This effort is supported by the Steady community.
Miranda Lambert was trying to recollect in her song about the house she grew up in. She was probably trying to recollect about how that how was instrumental in shaping her as a person.
I loved this post and the reactions to it by readers. Tears rolled down my face as I watched the Miranda Lambert video. I don’t even know why but that’s okay. Maybe because my 99 year old father is showing sins of his age and failing well-being, and some people simply seem like they’ll always be here. I lost my nearly 15 year old beloved dog to old age last December and for months prior I’d stare at his eyes and say, “You aren’t telling me you’re going to die, that you want to die, are you?” It didn’t seem possible.