I just read Anne Michael's latest book, The Winter Vault. It deals a lot with memory and place. Interesting ideas to mull over and I like her way of writing - very poetic.
On a rainy day, I brought my spouse to St. Donat to see the house and grounds where I spent my summers and weekends from the mid-50s to 1986. I wanted him to peek into my memories. For me the place had layers - with ghosts and visions of years past. I saw not only what was there that day, but also the people and events I lived with and through here. Even the house, renovated and expanded since my parents sold it, I saw as it was. Many of the people who populated that life are now gone - they too are memories.
I have not gone often since the house was sold. And when I do, I go when I know no one will be there. I need to feel that I am not tresspassing. It's hard to go back, to see a place that was home and no longer is, to stare at the view across the lake as a stranger. But every so often I need to look again at the place that is still so much part of who I am.
