There’s many events that happen to you in life. Sometimes you sit there and wonder if they will ever really change your life. Between heart break, death, career, and new places you have never been. Will you recover, will you give up, what’s next?
Growing up I moved around a lot, but that doesn’t mean every place I lived felt like home to me. When I was really little I lived in an apartment in Everett MA. After that we moved with family in Brockton MA and then we moved into an apartment in Norton MA. In high school my family moved into a house in Berkley MA, finally I live in East Taunton MA now in my own home. it did not matter where we lived or who we lived with we always had dinner as a family and I make sure my little family does this as well.
When we lived in Everett MA. We lived in a rather large apartment. I love that apartment it did feel like home. We had a lot of space, so we were not living on top of each other. I remember all the rooms in the house were always sunny and bright. My mother would leave the windows open, so you could always have the wonderful smell of fresh cut grass. I lived with my mother and only sister, I would have to say we learned mostly everything from my mom since she was our only parent in the house,
We moved to Brockton MA after that. This house did not really feel like a home to me the way the apartment did, and I think it would have to be there was more people in this house. However, it was nice sometimes to wake up and always have people around other than just my mom and sister. This house was a raised ranch style home. Unlike our old apartment there was not that much sun light that came through the windows and the windows were hardly open. The house always smelled of dog, which was not my favorite smell. We also did not have that much space of our own, since we had to share the house with other family members
Next, we moved into an apartment in Norton MA, this apartment was the smallest place we had lived in. It was not a bad thing that the apartment was small because it was back to my mom, sister and myself living together with just each other and no one else. My mom again had the windows opened a lot which is something I always liked. However, there was not that much grass around this apartment so the smell of cut grass we still did not have. I noticed my mom started to light more candle around the house more often and that was a nice change of smell. She liked to have fresh cut flower candles burning. After we moved into this apartment my now step father moved into this new apartment. That was big adjustment at first, but everything worked out for the best. Even with my new stepdad living with us I think this apartment had the feeling of home to me.
After the Norton MA apartment we moved to Berkley MA into our own home with my mom step father and sister. This house felt like home to me, it was a new place, something that was just ours. When I say ours I mean my new whole family. We were happy, we had a nice size backyard to so whatever we wanted to do, without anyone saying anything. I got to have my own room, which was the biggest room I have ever been in, we also had a great size backyard with tons of grass and windows to open for the fresh smell of grass. This house was the last place my while family lived together, where my sister and I finished school and started to mature into young adults.
The very last place I have lived is my own home in East Taunton with my little own family. This home feel like home because this is where I have started to raise my family, set my own rules, and decorate it the way my little family likes it. I did realize one thing after I moved out into my own place I still like to open my windows and have the smell of fresh grass like my mom use to do, the backyard in this home is nice a large with lots of green grass and space for our dogs we have now.
With each home I have loved in it may not always seem or feel like home to me, but I have memory’s in every place. I have realized something that is the same in all the place I have lived and felt like home, I like to have my close family and the memory of cut grass is always my favorite. I’m not sure what’s next for me in the future, but I know with family close by it makes change a little easier.
I like that certain smells conjure up feelings of home for you. I feel the main idea is that throughout the years you have lived at many places, but you know exactly how you want to feel wherever you call home. When you said, “I have realized something that is the same in all the place I have lived and felt like home, I like to have my close family and the memory of cut grass is always my favorite,” I realized that this is home for you.
At the end you say, “With each home I have loved in it may not always seem or feel like home to me, but I have memory’s in every place.” Would you consider going in to more detail, listing the most important memory, or memories, that you associate with each place? Would you want to include how long you lived at each, or how old you were?
I feel the message of your essay is that home is not just where we live, but that it is something more, a feeling. That having your family with you, and the smell of fresh cut grass, evoke feelings of nostalgia and home for you.
Your writing is clear and well-organized here. But I think you’re trying to cover too much territory here by going through all of these different places you’ve lived. Memoirs work best when the writer slows down to describe particular experiences, so the reader can feel as if he/she is sitting on the writer’s shoulder. Instead of that kind of scene, you’re mostly summarizing here.
Your main idea seems to be something about realizing what makes a home. Can you *show* this by describing a specific event? What images come to mind? I had thought at the beginning that the essay was going to be about family dinners, and was expecting to see some descriptions that let me see what a family dinner is/was like in your family. But it seems to come down to family and cut-grass. Family, though, means different things to different people, and you don;t really show just what your own family “culture” is like.
For revision assignment, please look at page on development at http://writingaboutplace.edublogs.org/development/ , in particular the pages on show don’t just tell and summary vs scene.
And one minor thing to watch out for in proofreading is run-on sentences. Here’s some info on that: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/runons.htm