Kat, you remind me of a message I received several years ago from Mudcatter Deckman, who saw a story in the paper about my mother's house having sustained a damage in a fire. Of course it was no longer my mother's house, but it had been my childhood home, and it was a shock to see it even damaged. It was also a landmark in town, but because of an unusual roof design, not because it was near anything where people would always remark on it. We used to put lights up under the eaves each holiday season because that made it look all the more like a "gingerbread house."

We had an even earlier house, in Seattle, where I loved to explore. There were spaces that were off limits to us because they weren't being used or because our parents didn't want to try to keep track of us in them. I'd love to be in that house as an adult, because I would use the green house, I would use the garden shed, I would use so much of the space that my parents never bothered with.

Amazing, when you think about it, how much of what we become can be based upon the spaces where we grew up, and how we understand space can be used.

SRS