Essay about My Childhood Home

The street I live on has a lot of houses on it, and mine just happens to be one of them. Each house has its own driveway each one unique in its own way. Most of them are paved driveways, but mine happens to be made from hard pack. I can picture the driveway when it was built, still in the same place and still being made of rocks.

It was not often that I had a few hours to slip away and return to that beloved spot under my favorite pair of trees. That day I had packed my hammock, a thermos full of jasmine tea, and the book that had been gathering dust on my shelf for months. I hopped in my car and drove the relaxing forty-seven minute journey (I had narrowed it down to the exact minute since I had driven there so many times). I stepped onto that familiar turf wearing my favorite jacket; it was a little more brisk than most would consider to be the perfect autumn afternoon, but I disagreed. The crisp, dry air was refreshing, cleansing. I needed to clear my head.

You use check lists for lots of things in life – for groceries, for homework, for chores, and in the case of my family it was for life. It was my parents’ way of keeping me safe. “Go down the list” or “Follow the plan” were common phrases in my home growing up. Post 9/11, it was the way to keep our family safe. The racism, the persecution, and the vehement looks were something that continue to plague my memories, but what truly resonates the most was the uneasy feeling I had growing up in the US. Knowing that I was not wanted nor was I welcomed in this country made me especially fearful and despondent growing up. In order to combat this, my parents explained the check list. If you stayed on track, and continued to check things off nothing could ever hurt or harm you. I am unsure if it was for my benefit or for theirs as well, but it kept us safe and gave us peace of mind.

Summer is the most fun and exciting time of any child’s life. There is no school, no homework, no uncomfortable uniforms, and most importantly no bedtime; but when summer comes to an end every heart breaks and we beg for summer back. In Alice Walker’s “The Flowers” Walker ends her work with the sentence “and the summer was over,” which symbolizes Myop’s childhood as the summer. This short, yet impactful sentence explains how Myop’s once happy childhood is now only a memory she’ll reminisce over and find herself begging to get back.

Brad Miller and I recently bought our very first home in Longmont, CO and our mortgage is through Premier/Cherry Creek. We worked with Alicia Alpenfels and I wanted to send an email letting you know how impressed we were with her. She had worked with us over two years ago when we almost bought a condo through the Boulder Affordable Housing program but the transaction fell through due to changes in our situation. When we were in a place to try and buy a home again last year there was no question that we wanted to work with her again. She was extremely kind, and dedicated to helping us get a home. We had numerous offers we put in and she always got our pre-approval letters to us when we needed them. A large part of the reason why the process

In the summer, I can see toys strung out upon the grass and hear the never-ending screams and giggles of joy from my siblings and I. I can see two men with hair colored like salt and pepper groaning as they lift up the last boards completing the sturdy swing set they built complete with three swings and a basil green slide. I hear the squeak of the metal chains as they’re moved about and used in the seemingly endless summer. I smell the fruity aroma of a freshly purchased treat from the ice cream truck dripping and sliding off of sticky fingers with a plop. My siblings and I shared goldfish and animal crackers under the

I, Adnan Sabbag, laid trembling in the safety of my bed on the second floor of my family's small Boston house. My father, Nizar, sat next to me, stroking me in a failed attempt to calm my fears. I have seen many things in my life. Syria. War. Turkey. The United States. And today, a hurricane.

Mother loved watching the tree as the rays of the sun would shine through the leaves, giving the world a warm, green glow. It was even more beautiful when it would slowly turn orange and red in the fall and tumble to the ground where a little girl with long brown braids and jean overalls and her mother would rake them up in piles and spend hours laughing and playing. Squirrels darted to and from the hordes of acorns they collected from the trees in the yard, and woodpeckers hammered at old oaks in the woods. When spring came around the yard was a beautiful home to many new baby animals. And spring was a great time for picnics. Mom ‘s heart was stirred as she recollected all the picnics she had shared with her family under

“Crunch, Crunch!” I heard, as I was tip-toeing like a mouse. My warm heart was thumping rapidly. As I turned the corner I --- “Boo!” My cousin James yelped. I will never let go of day when my family and I got lost in a colossal maze, because of the frightening things we saw and thought about.

One burning hot summer day, Brianna, my sister, and I decided we should go play outside as usual but that day felt different. I knew that day would be different from the other blasting hot summer days. I slipped into my gray and salmon colored sandals and hopped outside.

Places are more than less often full of memories. Rooms have narratives that can be told through the items and furniture they contain. These narratives are often overlooked and not thought about, especially in places where one does not want to spend a particularly large amount of time. Rooms speak, even though we often don’t want to listen, or don’t want to know. Basements are often like this, full of broken thing and memories, knee-deep castaways, childhood toys and holiday lights. The basement in my childhood home is this way, completely divided into then and now; simply, entirely, depressing.

In a world of noise, there are yet many who have no voice, whose cries go unheard. The world looks at them from afar, rarely embracing them. As for me, actually seeing, touching, and living among those with no voice, so near my childhood home, marked an awakening in me that transitioned my idyllic childhood to adulthood.

Driving to Long Prairie, on the right side of the road, up a hill with a long, paved driveway will be a house to the left. This house is two-stories with a basement. The first time I saw it, the house had a worn out, light tan vinyl siding with faded, dark red shutters from years of Minnesota weather. At the end of the driveway was a garage that resembled the houses color. To the right of the driveway was a large stone wall that was overrun with wild grape vines. In the middle of the wall was a stairway that leads to an old, rundown playhouse. Also, there was a large, gray brick shed further away. Beyond the house are the woods, littered with pine needles from the rows of trees my grandpa planted when he moved there. The whole area is surrounded by the overpowering smell of pine, and the silence the woods carries; it brings a calming, peaceful sensation to me. As the years have gone on, the house and I have aged, grown, and changed together.

Ordinarily, traveling to the “middle of nowhere” is just that—going nowhere. However, to me it means the neighbor-less neighborhood, called backcountry. I live in the “middle of nowhere” for half of the time; the other half I live in an ever-growing college city, Columbia. I have cultivated a special appreciation for each journey home through the winding Missouri back roads that bring me to the place where my soul rests. Though the roads may take me to one of my houses, my home exists far beyond its walls.

I was making some Tea and all of a sudden I hear someone outside so I move from where i'm making the tea and I peek through the window and I see a nice young good looking boy about the right age and I am making sure he is good to work with. I am waiting for him to knock on my door but real quick I make sure everything is just right. I run upstairs and check that all the bedrooms are closed except the perfect one for him so I make the bed and make it look neat then I check out the window and I see him he is stepping up so I think why not just open the door so I do.