Look closely.
On the left-hand side of this picture, you can see a water tower, tall above the trees. It’s in the neighborhood next to the one where we live but close enough that we consider it ours.
I had mixed feelings about it when we were choosing a lot to build our house 10 years ago. You can’t miss it from our front porch, and I wasn’t sure about the aesthetic it created. While we considered which patch of land to pick, Jeff noted the water tower could be a landmark after road trips, letting us know we’re almost home.
That’s exactly what it’s become. Whether a beacon against a blue sky or covered in clouds causing us to look harder, the water tower is a welcome sight. Abby Kate and Lily have turned it into a game, “tricking” Jeff into looking the opposite direction until they can spy it first. Jeff and I sneak a shared smile every time, knowing these days with them are fleeting.
The water tower has gotten a spruce over the last few weeks, cleaned and re-painted. We’ve heard the noise as they work late into the night but somehow, I’ve found it soothing. It has reminded me of Saturday mornings as a little girl when I would wake up to the sound of my mom running the vacuum cleaner along the hallway outside my bedroom.
Our family has wondered quite a bit about the renovation as we’ve taken walks through the neighborhood or as the water tower comes into view on the way home from school. Sometimes workers have been hidden behind what looks like a giant shower curtain. Jeff texted me a picture and joked “I don’t know if I can find my way back home if I go somewhere.”
The water tower is a guidepost for our family. We look for it when we exit the interstate. When we are tired from traveling, whether to Birmingham or Mississippi where our moms live or back from Florida where we’ve seen the Mouse, the water tower signals we’re home.
There is nothing quite like the way coming home stirs the soul.
My childhood home doesn’t have a water tower but I sense a similar thrill when that little yellow house comes into view from the road, just above the community ballpark.
The ditch that flanks mom’s driveway is not an easy entrance, especially when you’re 15 and figuring out how to drive. I’m 43 years old now and I still lean into the steering wheel and stretch my neck toward the windshield, watching carefully to make sure I turn the tires just right. The crunch of gravel feels familiar. I sometimes expect my daddy’s pickup truck to be parked parallel to the hill behind the house, even though he died 13 years ago. When I step onto the deck, my nose automatically searches for the smell of laundry tumbling in the dryer.
Memories, buried deep.
I didn’t even realize they were memories until these flashes from the past flickered in my mind during a visit to see mom in January. It seems no matter how many years go by, the rhythm of home remains, tucked into places we don’t know exist until an unexpected moment of nostalgia unlocks them.
My daddy probably wasn’t thinking beyond a hot shower when he parked his pickup truck after a long day at work in the coal mines, and very likely the next thing my mom considered as she washed clothes was what she should cook for Sunday dinner. They couldn’t have known how closely my heart would hold these very regular, everyday moments. Yet the little things have lingered, long and deep, and my reflection on them has shaped this realization:
I am creating now the memories my daughters will carry through their lives.
I wonder which rhythms, insignificant today, my girls will remember when they return home years from now. The sound of the garage door opening, announcing Jeff home from work. The smell of microwave popcorn I prepare for an after-school snack. The sight of our water tower and knowing they are almost home.
One day Abby Kate and Lily will be grown and gone, and the space that we desperately needed when they were little will be empty. Our house, like our water tower over the last weeks, may be cleaned and re-painted, ready to hold another family’s memories. Wherever life takes us, I want the rhythm of home to remain with them.
Look closely.
You might not see a water tower in your personal picture, but the landscape of your life holds something special that connects you and your children to home. Discover what it is. Nurture it as often as you can. Because one day, probably when they least expect, it will be the very thing that welcomes them home.
“By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.”
(Proverbs 24: 3-4)
