This house. Has made an indelible impression on my soul. And that's a truth, understated.
If you've followed this blog for any length of time, perhaps you remember my series of dreams and lamentations, written last spring, when the house was lost to me. (In the event that you have not: parts 1, 2, 3, and 4, for your convenience.) Yesterday was the first time I've driven by it since.
I stepped out of the car, stood in the street, and snapped a photo. The winter gloom does nothing for the Greyhouse, of course. In fact, reality will never be as magical, or larger-than-life, or hauntingly prevalent as the house that exists but in my memory alone.
The house that, with but a single glimpse, can transport me to nostalgic places of the heart.
The house that spawned countless hours of adventures among seven child cousins; three girls, four boys. There were dress-ups and bicycle rides and campfires and LiteBrites and unfairly executed games of tag in which the boys ganged up against the girls; games which often made Emily strike a pose of protest, defiantly removing her hand from the tree base and declaring that we "weren't going to keep playing this way." Jesse, capitalizing on the rules of the game, would invariably interrupt her outcry, tag her "it," and then sprint away, cackling as he shouted, "No tag backs!"
My love for the place is relentless, but not half so precious to me as the memories left in its wake, or the relationships gained from the hours upon hours spent within and about the acreage of the Greyhouse.
With love... for my siblings Tori and Asher, and my cousins, Isaac, Jesse, Emily, Marcus (and Trace, too, even though he's a wee bit younger than the bunch of us), and to their respective spouses + children. Time marches on, but with hope that the best days are ones yet to come.
