The Home Away From Home

Tuesday's blog post and the realization that I must not have blogged about it already was inspired by a search of the old Chicago homestead that my dad was raised in. I don't have pictures of that in digital format at all. I might not have them in any format although my dad probably does. In the boxes and boxes and boxes of photos we moved from Minnesota. So the image I'm using to pretty up the post is just some random house. It doesn't resemble any of the homes I'm going to talk about.

When I was at the gym recently, one of the trainers mentioned she was from Chicago. Both my parents were originally from there, but moved to Minneapolis before I was born. It got me thinking about some of the homes my relatives owned (and sold).

The first house I thought of belonged to my favorite cousin and her parents. I found pictures online because it had sold recently enough that they were still available to view. There were changes made--the carpet was gone, revealing hard wood, the walls were painted, and a new deck was put on the back. The yard looked completely different, but it was still the house I remembered.

Next, I wondered if the old homestead had pictures up. This is the house my dad was raised in after his father died. I remember staying there whenever we visited Chicago because my dad's aunt and his sister lived there. The house was sold when my dad's older sister went into a nursing home.

This house had sold in spring of 2019, so yes, indeed, there were pictures. This house had undergone a bigger makeover. The kitchen was completely revamped, and in all honesty, it probably needed to be because there had been no kitchen cabinets. All the dishes (and everything else) had been stored in the pantry. The bathrooms had been remodeled as well. Also needed. The upstairs had been a half bath and now it was a full. Also at least one bedroom--maybe two, it was hard to tell from the pictures--was gone and an upstairs family room put in its place. The basement looked nothing like I remembered.

The third house I looked at belonged to another of my dad's older sisters. That had been sold after her death by her children. This house hadn't had the good fortune of the other two. Whoever bought it from my cousins must have trashed it because when they sold it, it went for 65% less than what they'd paid! Both sales happened after the housing crash, so that's not the explanation. There weren't really any pictures here and probably for a good reason.

Of the three, the people who bought the homestead did the best job. They kept the character of the house (it had been built in 1910), but renovated it enough that people today would enjoy living in it. This made me a little nostalgic. We had so many good times visiting, so many evenings around the dining room table talking and laughing. Running around with my cousins, playing games.

I haven't had time to develop these deep, deep attachments to any of the homes I owned. I was getting there with my house in Minnesota, but then I was relocated to Atlanta. Since I've been here, I've lived in a condo and two houses. Maybe I can bond with this house.

Memory Lane

My dad is writing his memoirs, and while he takes a trip down memory lane, he's taking me along with him. Most of what he brings up, I already remember, but there are things that he mentions that brings back my memories of when I was a kid.

For example, he mentioned Camp Christmas Tree. He thought our family had gone camping there. (Ha! Our family only camped a couple of times in my entire life.) I said no, I went to camp there. He then guessed it was a Girl Scout camp. It wasn't. I had to explain to him that it was a day camp and that I went there every day for two weeks (I think it was two weeks). He or Mom would take me to the bus, they'd bring us to camp, and at the end of the day, the bus would bring us back.

I hadn't thought of this place in years, not since I stumbled across the rubberized camp bag I had from when I went there. I think I saw it in 2013 when I was packing up my house to move from Minnesota.

Camp wasn't a lot of fun. I'm a shy introvert and I was even quieter as a kid then I am now. I also wasn't particularly coordinated at sports and this combination didn't help me fit in with the other kids. I remember being picked on, I remember singing songs on the bus, and I know I'm grateful my parents only sent me there once. :-) (I'm sure other kids had a great time there. I didn't.)

There have been other things he's brought up where I had to correct him or remind him of details he'd forgotten. It's amazing how clearly some of these memories come back once he brings them up.

It also makes me twice as sad that I threw my calendars away when I moved from Minnesota. My dad is going back in time by pulling out all his pocket calendars. I had wall calendars filled with what I did and with who. Had being the operative word. Now I only have my planners from the past four years, and without the prompts, that's a ton of my memories gone forever.

The Mandela Effect

A few months ago, I heard about something called the Mandela Effect. Per a Buzzfeed article I read, this "is what the internet is calling those curious instances in which many of us are certain we remember something a particular way, but it turns out we’re incorrect."

This intrigued me because months before I heard the words Mandela Effect, I had my own experience with it. I saw something online about the Berenstain Bears and I was like, that's not right. It's the Berenstein Bears. I was so positive about it, that I thought the author of the piece I was reading was wrong. Until I reached the picture of the book cover.

My memory of books, TV, movies, music from when I was a kid is pretty good and this bothered me. I was rarely this sure of something like this only to be totally wrong. And guess what? In the Buzzfeed article one of the examples of the Mandela Effect is the Berenstain Bears.

This is where I sheepishly admit that it was probably just remembering incorrectly on my part. Actually, most of the examples given at Buzzfeed are easily explained away and I can't say I experienced any of them except for the bears. Still, it's intriguing to think about the possibilities of alternate universes somehow merging.

Actually, the most intriguing part is how many people remember something completely differently than reality. What if there is something to this? That was my writer's brain cranking up. There are so many possibilities for stories here.

If you'd like to read more Mandela Effect memories, there's a website for that. I find this whole thing fascinating.

Favorite Childhood Valentine's Day Memory

I was scratching my head, trying to come up with a blog post idea for Valentine's Day that hadn't been done six million times before. This is what I came up with: My favorite childhood Valentine's Day memory.

One of the things I liked in grade school was that everyone needed to bring a valentine for all their classmates, that way no one was left out. We also decorated shoe boxes into which the cards would be dropped. That's my favorite memory--the box I decorated in (I think) third grade.

Everyone usually just put construction paper over the shoe box and a few hearts and called it good, but in this particular year I did more. I made my box look like Snoopy's doghouse.

It turned out super cool and I even brought a plastic Snoopy from home and put him on top of the roof. Do I need to say that I won the contest for box decoration. I'm sure I have a picture of it somewhere among the huge stash of photos my dad brought from Minnesota, but I haven't been able to find it. I hope I do one day because I'd like to see it again. I'm sure it's much more impressive in my mind than it was in real life. :-)

I love doing artistic stuff, but sadly, wasn't gifted with a lot of ability. I think that's why this memory is a favorite of mine.

What Art Can Do

Years ago, I bought a print for my parents' house that showed Don Quixote on horseback holding a spear and carrying a shield. With him is Sancho Panza. It's done in abstract and the original work was done by Pablo Picasso. You can see the print at All Posters if you're interested.

It's done in black and white, there's no color involved, but something about it grabbed me.

The funny thing is that while I've always liked the print, I didn't realize it was Don Quixote for a really, really long time. Call me slow, I know. It wasn't until I saw The Man From La Mancha while I was in New York for a Romance Writers of America conference in 2003 that I realized just who and what the print represented.

Suddenly, the print took on new meaning for me. Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, dreaming the Impossible Dream. No longer was it just an interesting drawing, now it had a story.

Maybe it's because I'm a writer. Maybe it's because I'm a dreamer. ::shrug:: But the story in The Man From La Mancha spoke to me.

When I moved, I asked my parents if I could take that print with me. I knew exactly where I wanted to put it in my new home. They let me and it's up right outside my bedroom. Sometimes I don't see it at all because of how familiar it is, but on other days, I walk past it and it speaks to me.

On different days it gives me different messages. Sometimes I remember the trip to New York and to Broadway to see the play. Sometimes I remember the conference and signing copies of Ravyn's Flight (now available in ebook!), the first time I ever autographed books. Sometimes I think about Don Quixote, living in his own world and making others strive to be better than they were. Like Aldonza (AKA Dulcinea). Sometimes I think of other aspects of the story.

The bottom line, though, is that this one piece of art can say so many things. Some of the associations are of my own making, but some come courtesy of Picasso and Miguel de Cervantes and that's pretty darn cool.

Happy Thanksgiving

Sexy & Romantic glitter graphics from S e x i l u v . c o m

I hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving so far. :-)

Today's the day where bloggers across the internet are talking about what they're thankful for. It's always good to reflect on the positive things in life, but I'm only going to mention one thing here.

It was 5 years ago this month that my first book came out. Ravyn's Flight had a release date of Nov 12, 2002 and it's been a hell of a five years since that point. Since then I've had five books and a novella released and my sixth comes out next summer. I've learned a lot and met some wonderful people. It's been a hell of a ride; thank you for sharing some of it with me. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving