Home Improvement, For dVerse Poets, Sept 26, 2024

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Home Improvement

Some of us find the world
in the places where we were born.
Some of us can find no place there at all
except in retrospect.

We write books about these lost places
as though we knew what they were all about;
as though just by living there, we understood that place.
Actually, by writing about them we visit them again
and feel as much a stranger as we did before.

That is how we can stand to write about them.
They become the exotic other lands we’ve traveled to.
Misfortune becomes the best part of the story;
and we, at last, are grateful for it.

 

For dVerse Poets Open Link Night

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About lifelessons

My blog, which started out to be about overcoming grief, quickly grew into a blog about celebrating life. I post daily: poems, photographs, essays or stories. I've lived in countries all around the globe but have finally come to rest in Mexico, where I've lived since 2001. My books may be found on Amazon in Kindle and print format, my art in local Ajijic galleries. Hope to see you at my blog.

19 thoughts on “Home Improvement, For dVerse Poets, Sept 26, 2024”

    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      Thanks, Ibeth. The truth is that my first two books were about where I grew up so I do have a lot of nostalgia for my roots. But also needed to move on and see the world. I do enjoy going back for reunions.

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  2. Lisa or Li's avatarmsjadeli

    Judy, you articulate “it’s complicated” so well here. I’ve lived most of my life within a 10-mile radius, and all of my life within a 20-mile radius. Vacations have been a lot of fun but I’m always relieved to get back to my habitat.

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  4. Ron.'s avatarRon.

    I just drove by the house I grew up in (built almost 8o years ago) which I hadn’t seen in ages. Funny how the passage of time shrinks everything, ain’t it?

    Thanks for sharing this touching work.

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  5. SAM VOELKER's avatarSAM VOELKER

    Ah the magic of our broken memories of people places, and things. None of them live up to what is embedded in our minds. And the older the memory gets the farther we become from the truth. We change a little and they change a lot~! Even pictures become sad to look at. Jealously sometimes becomes the reason at the other end, if you have escaped the place and then return telling all about your freedom of adventure~! Instead of being happy for your good luck to have escaped, they are unhappy for their still being stuck there and really don’t understand that this is taking place.

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    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      Most of my memories of growing up are happy ones…but as I have said before, my wish was always to leave to see the rest of the world…the more strange and different, the better.

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  6. okcForgottenMan's avatarokcForgottenMan

    As Judy knows, I am reluctantly re-living in the house I grew up in – the house I was relieved to leave behind at age 20. But circumstances dragged me back 35 years later, in 2006, as my parents transitioned to assisted living. Mom was born 98 years ago about 7 feet behind where I type this. She & Dad were joined in marriage about 4 feet beyond my computer screen ahead. Seeing that I’m sharing uncomfortably close quarters with the recalcitrant ghosts of my past, I figured I had to respond to Judy’s post. My house has never been home (and will NEVER be), but it has been a sort of touchstone. I suppose I should be grateful for that, but to whom?

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