So lovely. Having lived 25 years in my current city, I experience this regularly. I wonder how it is for my children, who have never lived anywhere else, not even in a different house. Having children is the closest I've come to bending the time-space continuum - I look at them and I see them simultaneously as they are now and as they were five, 10 , 15 years ago.
I never really noticed it in my parents’ house - my parents still live in the house they moved to nine days before I was born, and while the place is weighty with memories, I don’t get the same feeling of being surrounded and haunted by them. Here, I think it’s because I chose this place for myself, twice.
So lovely. Having lived 25 years in my current city, I experience this regularly. I wonder how it is for my children, who have never lived anywhere else, not even in a different house. Having children is the closest I've come to bending the time-space continuum - I look at them and I see them simultaneously as they are now and as they were five, 10 , 15 years ago.
I never really noticed it in my parents’ house - my parents still live in the house they moved to nine days before I was born, and while the place is weighty with memories, I don’t get the same feeling of being surrounded and haunted by them. Here, I think it’s because I chose this place for myself, twice.
Oh, Alison, this post is absolutely wonderful. 'Haunting' yourself - what a great metaphor. A stunning read.
Thanks Rebecca!