So much sun reminds me of before Newfoundland.
Laying in a bed by a breeze that smells like grass, sun, dusty skin. Nestled far from the ocean, between apple trees and hills covered in manure.

After migrating so much, I'm convinced that every place has its own ethos. I don't know why. Whatever makes up the blocks of land and houses and weather and genetic history of the people creates a spirit in a place. It's one of those things that's hard to see if you've lived somewhere your whole life, but, if you've been an outsider enough, you get a sense for it. Little tics that remind you you're somewhere else - pinpoints in your heart that point in one direction or another.

The sun in Ottawa isn't like the sun in Newfoundland. It's like Nova Scotian sun. Valley sun, specifically.

I laid in bed this morning, awake, while my son was napping and thought about our home in Bridgetown ("our" being my parents and sisters when I was a child - not "our" my husband and son's). I thought about my room, on the second floor, and how it was perfectly positioned to take in the afternoon sun. So much sun. I can't remember what colour our walls actually were, but everything in that house feels white to me now; bleached by sun. Happy cracked windowpanes. White curtains, white bed, white floor, walls, clothes in omnipresent sun beams. Even at night, every night with the windows open, I could still smell the light on my skin.

And grass.

Not the rough, mossy grass that I found in most of Newfoundland (that I would also come to love in its own way). The grass of Acadians. Green, gentle; you could roll in it without getting wet or a stain. I don't think I ever wore shoes outside our Bridgetown house; feet in grass until something would upset me and I'd climb one of the tall slender trees in our backyard. I can't remember now what kind they were; elm or maple, maybe? I marvel now at how fearless I was, an 80 pound monkey, sitting in the tops of bending tree arms (Yes they were maple, I remember the leaves now: purples, reds, mosaic edges).

And I'd think.

Never about the future, the way that children never do, but about the world and how to touch it and share it in my limited capacity. How to reach into the whistling around me, wondering, but never quite figuring out how.

When I found out we were moving (again), I wrote on a piece of paper and slipped it into one of the cracks in the wall of my bedroom. I was desperate for someone, anyone, to know that I had been there and I had loved my bare-foot tree house. I had intended to write: "I'm a girl, I was here", but, being a poor speller I actually wrote "I'm a gril, I was here". Which is pretty funny.

I've done this in a couple of our houses, when we've had renovations, or I've found a hidden crook. Memos and notes to someone else about nothing. Just that I was there and I wanted them to know (I guess I'm still doing that. Hello, blog).

Another funny thing is that this particular bought of nostalgia compelled me to Google my old house and, sure enough, it still exists in the same place. And it is for sale. This is it.

True to form, it's sunny in the picture, but that's about it. It's just a house now and when I first looked at the picture I felt a little embarrassed at how I had blown it up in my mind. Not magic. Just a house.

I looked through the listing ; they had torn apart the bedrooms, resurfaced everything, painted the walls, covered any evidence of the previous owners - who knows how many. Like they would, I guess. The white, cracked, daylight breezes are gone and there are just pictures of rooms. Could be anyone's rooms. With small beds, small furniture, small dimensions. Dim features, not the endless hallways I remember. An old house, in a small town, somewhere far away.

Which would serve me right, I guess, for trying to resurrect a romantic child's-view from 20 years ago. Memories never seem to stay in the places you hope to find them.