The House That Built Me

“The World is Too Much with Us” Has that thought ever come into your mind when the pressures of your everyday world started getting to you? It was during those times I would recall days gone by when I was a young boy growing up in the country sharing dog biscuits with my pet collie in the front yard and catching fireflies in a jar just before bedtime.  Back then we thought nothing of walking three miles to pick up the mail at the post office located at the railway station, and I remember the school bus frequently stopping to let a herd of dairy cows meander across the road going from one pasture to another.

Life was so simple then, and I felt so safe and secure in my family home – a little pink farm house on about ten acres of land with a red two-stall barn, sprawling fields and a spring-fed pool hidden in the woods at the end of a long path. I loved my childhood home.

I have childhood memories here too, but those memories are of my own children. I remember how pleased my youngest son was, now 30, when he could climb a little stepladder and reach a limb on an old scraggly oak tree in the backyard. I refuse to cut that limb, because I see him there every time I pass by that old scraggly oak tree.

I was reading an article about an interview with songwriter, Tom Douglas. He wrote a wonderfully haunting song titled “The House That Built Me”. It was voted Country Music Association’s song of the year in November 2010 and was performed by Miranda Lambert.

When Douglas remarked that he was aware of how fractured people’s lives have become today, and even with all our modern technology we are becoming increasingly isolated it made me think. What is the purpose of a home? Is it just 'a thing' and nothing more than four walls? Do we look at it strictly as an investment? A financial advisor I was speaking with recently said real estate is not just an investment; it is an ‘investment commodity’ because we use it. And hopefully, if we use it, it is a place where family and friends come together and memories are made.

Think about where you live and what you have. Then think about what you want and why you want to become a part of the lifestyle on Martha’s Vineyard. This tiny Island is still a place where dreams can come true, a touchstone where you can come, regroup, recharge; a place where you can put away all your technology and become whole again as a person and connected as a family. You can take part in all the simplicity in life that exists all around you here, on the hiking and biking trails, ponds great and small – perfect for kayaking and canoeing, fishing from dozens of fabulous beach locations or just kicking back with a stack of light summer reading. You probably won’t have to stop your car today for a herd of dairy cows crossing the road, but be on the lookout because most likely you will encounter a rafter of wild turkeys casually sauntering across the road.

Owning a home on Martha’s Vineyard can be so very simple and keeping it simple is what you really want. Don't you? After all if you think about it, that is your dream -- a simpler way of life.

Don’t lose sight of the house you loved when you were growing up and how that house built you. It’s not too late to build more great memories or create those memories you always dreamed about, but life never presented the opportunity. The opportunity is here for you now.

The World Is Too Much With Us
by William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.