Will I ever be timely with the Friday 5?

Last week's was on habitation:
5 places I have lived: what did I like, what kind of place was it, did anything special happen there.

1. I spent most of my life in one house, 211 Lincoln Road, Lincoln, Mass. I loved my growing-up house. I remember when we first moved and I couldn't see over the bathroom counter to the mirror and one day seeing my head in the mirror. I remember hiding in the large cupboard next to the stove, and climbing (with apparently prehensile toes) up to the top of the refrigerator, for whatever it was that my mom stored there. I remember the hot stillness of the crawl space before my mom renovated it into a master suite and the cool creepy basement with the coal chute, wood pile, and dark room. I think I thought all houses looked like mine, even when I knew plenty of houses that didn't.

2. From 9 on, we spent our summers in Westport, Mass, the town of my ancestors and where my mom now lives. I am rooted in my sense of place there: farms, fens, estuary, ocean. Westport was the perfect combination of cool trees, tall grass, balancing stone fences and water: river water that pulls in one direction or the other, slurping water in the shallow boat pond, salty water with the potential for jellyfish. I loved the sound of the waves lapping under Kate's boathouse and the smell of hot flowers: roses, rosehips, day lilies.

3. The room I lived in my senior year in college was papered in flowers. Posters, postcards, wallpaper strips - every wall had flowers and photographs. I also had 3 enormous windows with shutters. My room jutted out over the security office in the basement and it was almost as if it were it's own building. The ceiling was high and the windows went all the way up. I had a modern oak desk and a bed with drawers under the mattress. I fell out of my bed several times and sometimes slept on my futon. My desk was for show rather than work, as I had a carrel in library, but Felicity, the American Girl from colonial times, perched on top. That room was a sanctuary and I think I try to recreate it a little bit in every house we live in.

4. For 3 months Joe and I lived in a hotel suite in California, while he was going through his basic school for the Civil Engineer Corps. I can remember learning to make creamed corn and hanging out with my new Navy-wife friends. It wasn't so much of a place to remember as a time to remember: newly married, newly on our own, forging our own identity/ies. I also kept meticulous files!

5. I loved our house in Rhode Island. It was a raised ranch with few closets and little that charmed. But the landlady had the wall-to-wall ripped up and the entire living area was hardwood. There were ceiling fans in all the rooms and windows on each wall. The sunlight streamed into that house, especially the living room with its blousy white curtains. Ironic, isn't it, that I so disliked actually living IN Rhode Island?

**I've also lived in Brookline (when I was small); Nicaragua, where the rain pelted the tin roof and I could literally hear the cows come home past my window; Guam, more rain and a baby; California, where I tried my hardest to imbed myself in the ecology of the place as much as I was a part of my childhood homes; Indiana, where to my surprise I found I liked the Midwest, and had another baby; New Jersey and the absolute stillness of 9/11; Mississippi, where my home wasn't the address on my mail but the church building that bolstered me, buffered me, and made me see the world differently; and Sicily. I consider some friends' houses home, as in places where I have learned more about myself and who I want to be/am. St Anne's undercroft and choir room was my home for much of my elementary and jr high years and I was well-loved and cared for there. I consider some museums and the rehearsal space beneath Jordan Hall a type of home, as well. Being able to call more than a house a home prepared me well for a life that requires me to move.