The House That Built Me
A Reason To Smile
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.
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I LOVE the YOU that is emerging! Wow! Dan Rather -- I see you every so often on documentaries that show you broadcasting things about events in your long career-- always with a giant presence. But now you are showing us your soul and heart in a way that before was just suggestive of you who you are. Thank You! This completes the picture of you as a being for me!
For probably many of your readers, myself included, our memories were built around many houses. Whether our parents were military or civilian, many of us moved repeatedly and frequently. I went to 3 elementary schools, 2 junior HS, and 4 HS. So, the house itself was never much of player in our growing up; it was a structure we resided in, until the next one. Often Dad and Mom didn't even have a choice as to where we'd live; "quarters" were assigned by the local military housing authority. My memories are more around the times we left those houses and went on vacations; to my parents' home town for holidays; or the multi-day trips when moving to the next duty station. But, 20 years ago my wife and I found a home in a place that within mere seconds reached out to us and said, "Here is where you can live." And I have continued through the years to discover the difference a PLACE can make; we have found a home, a certain place on this globe, where we truly LIVE, not just reside. And for that, I am with all my heart, thankful.