I’m here, Mum and Dad. I made it… I said I would, and you gave me your blessing, and here I am.
They would be so pleased to know that I’m finally where I want to be, where I feel most at home. I can see Dad chuckling and teasing me “Another move?” but at the same time bursting with pride that I’d done it, and sensibly too… I can see Mum grinning, knowing that I’d followed her advice – to be patient, to set my goal and to steadfastly head towards it.
This house – already familiar when I first walked through the door – is more familiar every day, as I surround myself with my memories and my books, and simple things that have been part of my life for decades: a Wedgewood plate, one of a pair my auntie gave me when I went to College, a small wicker basket my friend bought me when I was 21, my cheval mirror…repaired so many times it no longer tilts… This house is so very like the holiday home I bought here, a decade and a half ago, and where my parents visited many times. So the beamed ceilings and terracotta floors feel like the very same beamed ceilings and terracotta floors that they admired so much, that they walked on. The simple décor ties me to that holiday home and to them, the same way my memories do.
The views though are something else! Oh, how they’d love those views, and the garden…the vineyard, the olive grove… How they’d love what we’ve created here, and how I would love them to see it, and see them smile.
“His father had told him that a person could usually know within a short amount of time if a place would be something special—something familiar—or if you were destined to always be a visitor.”
― Murder at the Flamingo