Fall is my favorite season. I love the fire leaves final farewell from snaking branches and the strange slant of sunlight. It’s a time of sinking into well-worn traditions, a time of gathering and remembering, when bright September days lead to cooler October nights. It’s also a time of deep mystery and the slowing down of nature prompts us to slow down too. These greater periods of darkness lend itself to being around the stove, kitchen table, or fire more often and we begin to look inside for our own warmth and light in different ways.

If we’ve lived in our houses long enough these celebrations and traditions etch themselves into the very fabric of our home and belongings that are with us year after year. I wonder if our kitchen tables and beautiful linens or our favorite pan handed down to us from our grandmother have their own memories. And what about all the conversations and laughter, cooking and cleaning up? Maybe all that dissipated energy of our endeavors, our joy, warmth, and kindness sinks into the bones of our broken-in furniture, appliances, pots, pans, even the walls that encompass us and everything that lives in us. Our homes must store memories of all the good times and bad, of the struggles and celebrations. Perhaps the house takes it all on, our dreams and hopes, our laughter and tears. These are the odd things I begin thinking of during this time of year, maybe that’s why I like this season most of all.

I have moved enough to know it takes about a year before my energy is fully set up in a new home. It takes time for us to get to know each other, all the little creeks and cracks, the anomalies and strange quirks we both possess. Slowly my energy unfurls to every corner of each room, until then I’m still living with the ghosts of the last tenants. Methodically I begin to change the color of the walls, the paper that lines the kitchen drawers, I plant new flowers, and switch out curtains and kitchen cabinet hardware. The energy of others still lingers though, the walls remember the previous owners, their squabbles and disagreements, their celebrations and love, until the day comes when I have been living in each room long enough. Then my emotions and actions begin to fill the rooms with my memories, my energy, and there is a shift in the house. The previous owners fade and the house and I become partners.

We’ve all had the experience of walking into a house and loving it immediately. In part it could be the beautiful deck with amazing views, the big picture windows, or stone fire place, but what we really feel is the memories the house holds of the people who’ve lived there. It seems natural that our houses would hold the state of who we are, the accumulation of what has been our reality and reflect that back when we arrive home or welcome in friends and family. The same can be said for walking into a home that is full of hate and hurt. These memories haunt everyone who enters. We feel uncomfortable and on edge. We live and breathe and create our lives in our houses, we love or hate the things that surround us, surely they remember us and love or hate us back.

Some believe that everything has some level of consciousness, stones, trees, sand, water. If we listen intently we can hear their language by how we feel when we are in their presence or in certain places. It is the same with our home. Birthdays, celebrations, every Thanksgiving and Christmas, welcoming a baby, graduations, the many meals, the coming and going of the seasons, and the daily epiphanies. We decorate, celebrate, and find ourselves in our homes. We mark the good times and the bad within their walls, it’s our evolution and growth that plays out in this safe place.

I am lucky to have fallen in love with my house at first sight. There is palpable love here and every time I turn onto my street that leads up to my house a hush of quietness surrounds me and I know I am right where I belong. I already feel my house reaching out to welcome me back, making me feel protected and cared for. It is the same when we use our things over and over again, a favorite pen, a well loved book, an inherited sofa, or a beautiful dining table, we imbue them with all of who we are. Do they store our memories, or do they have memories of their own, the touch of our fingertips, the warmth of our breath, the sound of our laugh? Do they live because of us or do they have a life of their own that they bring to us?

Welcome fall and all the dimly understood ideas. This is a time of in-between and of being on the cusp of the unusual. Go ahead, jump in.

kb