The House That Built Me

My daddy built our house. It was not very big by today’s standards. My first room was painted blue. I don’t really think Daddy was wishing for a boy, if he was he never made me feel like it. We had hardwood floors my mama fussed over. I could run and slide down the hall in socks. The bathroom was a neutral green and the inside of it’s closet was never finished, I’m not sure why but the furnace could be reached under the house by taking out a piece of plywood. You could also see the ground when it was moved and I was sometimes afraid a monster or witch would sneak up at night to get to me…I finally realized nothing was under there but dirt.
The kitchen was varnished pine with pink Formica countertops. There was a window over the sink that allowed a view of the big oak tree, the garden and assorted fruit trees. Huge old Hydrangea bushes peeked back in during summer months waving sky blue mop heads back and forth.
I remember playing under my mothers dining room table. My Barbie’s and baby dolls could often be found behind the tablecloths or in the upholstered seats of the fancy chairs. Every now and then Mama would let me help her polish the silver forks and spoons she kept in a special box in the china cabinet. There was a spoon, smaller than the rest with my initials on it. Mama said I used it when I was a baby.
We had a room we called the den. Daddy and I watched Bonanza, Ed Sullivan, Disney and the Flintstones on TV. At some point there was an aquarium with dozens of guppies and an orange Naugahyde couch. Neither made it very long. The guppies started eating their babies and the couch would stick to sweaty skin in the summer. Daddy decided after ten years or so to enclose the carport and make a new den. The old den became Mama’s sewing room and Daddy got a recliner and a fireplace. We all liked the addition but I kind of missed the sun coming in the kitchen window on winter afternoons. Mama insisted we needed a “sectional sofa”. I thought just a plain old sofa would have done the job with only three people in the family and Daddy in his recliner. We kept that gold couch for a long time. It made it through most of my childhood and two more houses.
When I was seventeen Daddy built us a new house. My mother tried to be happy about it but I knew she wasn’t. I was excited about picking the color of my new room even though I only lived there for a year before I left for college. I picked a light peach color with a slightly darker carpet. I got my parents mahogany bedroom furniture and a comforter that looked like a grown up. It made it easier to leave…since I didn’t grow up there I had no ties, no history, no openings where the witches and monsters could get in. I spent a couple of summers there but it never meant as much as the little brick house I grew up in.

There is a new Miranda Lambert song that inspired this note…I love her spunk and energy but this time she kinda tugged at my heartstrings.