I've lived in a lot of houses in my time. By the age of 24 I was in our sixth house, which works out, on average, as four years per house. But forget averages - I've only actually lived in a house for four years on two occasions, the other periods of tenancy ranging from as far apart as one and a half years to eleven years.
Anyone who's ever read Scots-born author KENNTETH GRAHAME's classic book The WIND In The WILLOWS will no doubt be familiar with the fifth chapter, DULCE DOMUM, which (roughly) means 'home sweet home'. In this episode, MOLE, while out on a ramble with RATTY one Winter's day, picks up the scent of his old home, long forgotten and neglected since he unwittingly abandoned it in pursuit of adventure one fine Spring morning many months before.
The chapter relates how Mole re-acquaints himself with many dear and familiar possessions and memories, and reminds him (and us) of the value of having an anchorage - a place to return to - in life, no matter how far and wide one may roam in the meantime. As the author writes (and as Mole thinks): "...it was good to think he had this (Mole End) to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome."
Funny thing is, I feel that way about every house I've ever lived in. If ever I'm walking along a street in which I once resided, I almost find myself walking up the path to the front door and unconsciously putting my key in the lock. If I were lost enough in thought, it's no stretch of the imagination to envisage such a thing actually happening. (One evening, while out walking our dog Tara, I was passing a previous home when she turned in at the stairs as though we still lived there. I almost followed. It's that kind of 'instinct' - or 'force of habit' - that seems to dwell within me also.)
Or should I espy a former home lit up at night, I can 'see' (as though with x-ray eyes) my father, pipe in mouth, sat beside the fire, watching the TV or reading his paper; I can also see my mother, darning socks or busy in the kitchen with domestic chores, or my brother in our bedroom listening to records or reading comics. Furniture, ornaments, wallpaper - everything as it was.
Each house beckons to me, summons me to obey its call to 'come on home', regardless of however many years have elapsed since I actually lived there, almost as if I'd only just popped out to the shops or to visit a pal mere moments before - with such clarity that the intervening years since we vacated whichever house seem like only a dream that never really happened.
Even more bizarre is when I seem to see a younger version of myself beyond the gleam which radiates from behind the curtained windows, engrossed in some book, or sat at the dining-room table, doodling or building an AIRFIX kit. On occasions such as this, it can be disconcerting to suddenly have the moment disrupted by the intrusion of a stranger looking out of the window, or entering or exiting through the front door.
Then, just like Mole and his chum Ratty as they stand mesmerised by a lit-up window, the bitter winds of reality catch the back of my neck and return me to the present - though usually unwillingly, and not without a strange, sad sense of loss and longing.
The past continually calls to me, but never more so than when I revisit the scenes of my youth, where shades of my younger self and family, and friends long departed to either the other side of the veil or the globe, yet inhabit these enchanted places from so many years ago.
If ghosts do exist, I wouldn't be surprised to find that they aren't only ghosts of the dead, but also of the living from an earlier time. That would perhaps explain why the shadows of yesterday dance forever before me.
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