Roses in bloom, yesterday, in the gardens at Stringtown Rising Farm.
It looks as if, finally, Stringtown Rising is about to change hands. (Hallelujah.) I went out there yesterday to check on things. It’s only about 10 or 12 miles away, but I haven’t been there in over a year. I just didn’t want to go there. I wasn’t sure how I would feel if I did. I have a lot of mixed emotions about that farm and the house….and, well, everything.
It’s always a strange feeling when you return, at some point down the road after you’ve been gone a long time, to a place that meant a lot to you. I was nervous before I went to my mom’s house this summer when I was in Texas. I hadn’t been there since she died. But the house has been redecorated and things are different. It didn’t feel like my mom’s house anymore, and stepping inside the house had felt bigger in my mind than it was in reality. It wasn’t upsetting. Several years ago, I went back to the house in Texas where we lived when all the kids were born. It was the same–but it was different. The new owners weren’t home and I looked in all the windows. (Yeah, that’s me, a window peeper.) The house had been remodeled–and in fact, it looked beautiful. The gardens around the house had been changed, and my favorite rose bush had been removed. (What?!) It wasn’t my house anymore. It was interesting to see it again, once, but I didn’t have the reaction I thought I might have, and it was okay.
Stringtown Rising is quite overgrown–somebody needs to put some animals on the fields, or get to brush hogging. The roof was caved in on BP’s milk stand. But, overall, it was fine, “washed clean” in a way by the fields growing up and some of the small outbuildings going down. The house looked….empty. Not like my house. It’s not mine anymore–it’s not the farm it was when I was living there. It’s ready to be somebody else’s. And I’m ready for it to be somebody else’s, too. It wasn’t meant to be mine forever. It was just something I was meant to survive. I felt no need to linger. I got back in my car and drove home to my present, and my future, with no sense of regret or loss.
There are always places in our lives that mean more, for one reason or another, than other places. But that meaning isn’t in the place itself. It’s in what we take away from it with us, in our spirits, our hearts, our minds.
It’s in the moving on, not the hanging on, that we bloom.
cabynfevr says:
“There are places I’ll remember, all my life, though some have changed. Some forever not for better, some have gone and some remain…..” :hug:
On September 13, 2013 at 11:52 am
Henry says:
It has been 23 years since I had been back to the house we owned in Charleston, SC. It was the first house we owned and the house where my son, now 32, was born and lived for 7 years. I drove by the house, then turned around and drove by again. The new owners were on the front porch and saw me driving by so I stopped. She graciously invited me inside to have a look. I was surprised by how little it had changed and it made me sad to see how quickly time goes by. Was glad I had the chance to see the house again.
On September 13, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Luv2Quilt says:
There are always places in our lives that mean more, for one reason or another, than other places. But that meaning isn’t in the place itself. It’s in what we take away from it with us, in our spirits, our hearts, our minds.
It’s in the moving on, not the hanging on, that we bloom.
WOW I can’t believe how true this is. When I go home to my mom’s I drive through areas with lots of memories some I love some I don’t (the memories). But it makes me who I am. I also have been driving around looking for my small hobby farm as well. Someday I hope to be you. :moo: At least be living on my own place with my own space. I guess I’ll have to “cowgirl up” as my cousin’s daughter would say. She’s 3.
Thanks for your writing and sharing.
Rhonda
On September 13, 2013 at 1:14 pm
aprilsinohio says:
This really spoke to me. Thank you. It took me to happy times in homes I’ve lived in in the past and made me realize the wealth of my spouses family home with all its memories I live in now. :butterfly:
On September 13, 2013 at 1:14 pm
MousE says:
This is a beautiful, and quietly profound, post. Thank you for sharing with us. And as per cabynfevr, (well done I say!)
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
:sheep:
On September 13, 2013 at 1:31 pm
broncobetsy says:
I love this!! You are one hell of a woman. 😀
On September 13, 2013 at 2:20 pm
JanaBelle says:
I felt that way after I left my first rental house. It was the first place I ever rented after I left my parents’ home and I lived there for seven years. It was kinda falling down around my ears so it was definitely time to move on but it was so hard to let it go. It meant something to me–still does. But I, like you, moved on to a much happier and better home. I have driven past that old rental house a few times out of curiosity and can still appreciate it for the blessing it was for that time in my life. But I’m soooo thankful that the Lord had something better in store for me. And I’m glad you found your happier place, too.
Sometimes we just have to go through those hard times–as wonderful and awful as they might be–just to truly appreciate the better times.
On September 13, 2013 at 2:47 pm
grandeb1956 says:
:purpleflower: Thanks for sharing! Nicely written, as usual!
On September 13, 2013 at 5:53 pm
Jersey Lady says:
Yay, happy to hear that you will not have Stringtown on your hands another winter.
On September 13, 2013 at 7:42 pm
TracyT says:
Beautifully written.
On September 13, 2013 at 8:14 pm
Rainn says:
Perfectly said….. Something we have all felt…
Rain 🙂
On September 14, 2013 at 7:20 am
leneskate says:
I so agree it is where you move to not where you are leaving. I have moved many times it has always ben good.
On September 15, 2013 at 1:07 am