Muserology Cafe

Be It Ever So Humble, There's No Place Like Home (February 2010)

by Kathleen A. Gros, age 16, Canada

This summer my family and I piled into our van, squeezed ourselves around various suitcases and bags, and set off on a road trip through the United States of America. Having never driven through the States, I was surprised at how different New York's landscape was from Ontario's. It wasn't just the landforms that were different; it was also the buildings. Instead of the red brick farmhouses I was used to, there were wood-paneled, colonial-style houses. As beautiful as they were, they weren't what I had expected to find. Without those brick houses, something was missing.

My parents bought our farmhouse about 10 years before my brother and I were born, before they even owned a car. It was a modest house, sitting on the outskirts of Rocklyn (a town no bigger than an intersection, with no stoplight). When they bought it the inside was painted all manner of vile, garish colors, but with my mother's careful artistry it became a warm, homey place. My mother spent weeks on a stepladder painting the walls cream and the trim green. She insisted on stenciling flowers along the tops of the walls; the main floor was lined with red berries, while the three bedrooms upstairs had yellow roses, pink roses, and tulips, respectively. It was a cheerful place, and it was theirs.

My parents love to travel. When they were young and without children they went all over the place: road trips to the United States, meeting relatives in the United Kingdom, cycling through Holland. They didn't want to leave this earth without having explored every corner of it. When my brother and I came along, we were included in the trips. Every other summer we were taken somewhere fantastic. We loved it. From Winnipeg to Cornwall, North Dakota to Cork, we couldn't wait to be there, discovering the world with our parents. 

But out of all these places, the farm was a constant. Every summer our parents would pack up the little red car, and we'd drive two hours north to spend a week or two of bliss in the country. The farm was a place of excitement, promise, and flies. Especially flies. The small, buzzing insects were everywhere. Each and every visit to the old house began with someone, usually my father, vacuuming up the carpet of dead flies that had settled since we'd last been there. My mother will tell anyone who'll listen about the time I killed my first fly. I was several months old and I had rolled over, squashing the unlucky critter with the back of my head. "It was her first!" my mother will sigh wistfully, looking both humored and proud. I don't remember the incident, myself, but I will never forget the smell of those creatures. It was everywhere up there. I found it comforting: the smell of new green branches and dandelion sap, earthy but tangy, almost pleasant. Now, whenever I vacuum, I think of the flies and their odor, how it characterized my youth. 

As a teenager, I lost interest in the farm. I no longer wanted to experience the family time it stood for. Every summer I dreaded our two-week visit and its inevitable solitude. The surrounding fields and swamp held no more fuel for my imagination. I was bored. I spent days in my room with the door closed, reading. The summer before grade nine was the last summer we had with the farm, the last summer I felt trapped in a red brick cage. 

My parents sold the farm in early 2008. Surprisingly, I missed it a great deal. I hadn't appreciated it when it was there; it had been just another place of ennui. Now that it was gone, I felt a strange sense of regret for all the things I could have done. I had lost my second home and the setting of my childhood. If only I had played in the fields more, climbed the trees, maybe I'd feel like the loss of it was okay because I'd had my time. But I didn't feel that way: I missed it more than ever and wished I'd been aware of how good I'd had it.

I felt the same way when I visited America. I was ready for an adventure in the land of the free, the home of the brave, but once I was there I missed the Ontario landscape. I've traveled to many countries in my lifetime, but it was there, just south of the border, that I missed my home, Canada, the most. In America, I felt like everything was wrong.

Both Canada and the farm were homes I took for granted, but now that I've missed them I love them even more.