Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Home, Part I: The Wisconsin Years

I had two homes before moving into the house that I grew up in.  My parents rented two apartments, neither of which I remember.  I think I have vague impressions from the second, but I can’t be sure if they’re true or based on photographs I’ve seen and stories I’ve heard.

My first true home was in Shopiere, Wisconsin; the house that I spent 14 years in.  It is still, 18 years later, the setting for many of my dreams.  It is always a little strange to wake up from one of those dreams feeling like I’ve spent time with people from other stages of my life there.

I thought that my family would live in that house forever.  To my knowledge, there were never any house hunting trips or even discussion of finding a new house.  We did spend one misguided day looking at property in the Florida Keys, but I think that was to humor my mother, not because a move was eminent.

My parents worked very hard to make improvements over the years and, except for a couple of really horrible decorating decisions in the living room, they made it into a very comfortable home.  I had a happy childhood there.  The smell of lilacs still takes me back to spring mornings, waking up with the windows open and the breeze carrying in the sound of the lawnmower and the scent of the flowers. 

I wish that I could say that I go up there a couple of times each year to visit the folks and show Tom where I used to play in the yard, but my little world sort of fell apart in that house.

In 1989, my father left my mother for her best friend.  My dad moved into an apartment and then in with L.  There were, shall we say, some hard feelings.  My house became the place where my very sad and angry mother lived.  Then she started seeing D. and staying with him almost every night.  At that point the house was just where I ended up after I went out with my friends.  Whee, memory lane!!

By the spring of 1990, my mother had suggested that we move to Texas with D. (who was, in fact, my father’s cousin, dun, dun, dun).  I wasn’t so much enjoying my home town anymore and my behavior had become a bit of a problem.  My parents didn’t realize this because they were busy settling into their new relationships, but I jumped at the chance for a fresh start.

My mother and I painted and packed and cried and yelled at each other a lot the last few weeks in that house.  I can’t really separate my feelings about the house from everything that happened there.  I have some of my very best memories, lots and lots of them, from my time in that house, but I also have some of my very worst.

I still consider Shopiere my home.  My friends and family are still in the area and I always have somewhere, if not that house on Creek Road, to return to.