Author's childhood home (author's photo)
It's a cliché to revisit your childhood home and become sentimental about the past. Through rose-coloured glasses, some of us like to imagine our formative years as magical and innocent. I'm certainly guilty of this. True to my Cancerian nature, roaming around in memory is something I do often. Recently, I had the opportunity to indulge that tendency in a tangible way when the house I lived in from birth until the age of twelve came onto the market.
The house is a three-bedroom, red-brown brick Californian
bungalow built in the 1920s. Curious to see it again, I visited the open
inspection with my mother and niece. Remarkably, little had changed. The most
noticeable difference was the garden, which had been thoughtfully landscaped
with a well (yes, really) and a picnic table.
The front door, with its stained-glass panel of oversized
red roses and green leaves, remained exactly as I remembered, although more
polished and vibrant. Even the hallway wallpaper had been replaced with a
pattern similar to the one that lined the walls during my childhood.
Walking through each room transported me back to a time that now feels distant and uncomplicated. I recall my siblings and I drinking wine diluted with lemonade at dinner, taking experimental puffs of our grandfather's cigarette, reading whatever books captured our imagination, and watching endless hours of television unsupervised. We roamed the neighbourhood on foot, rode our bikes and skateboards for streets at a time, and played cricket in the middle of the road.
It was the 1970s. There wasn’t much that was regulated.
Author with mother (author's photo)
I have to mention the significance of the house's numerology - 40 Fourth Avenue. The prominence of the number 4 speaks of stability, tradition and permanence. Homes carrying this vibration tend to be occupied for long periods by the same family and are deeply connected to their history.
My family lived at this address from 1965 to 1980. The couple who
bought it from us remained there from 1980 until 2015. Even before my parents
purchased the property, the previous owners had lived there for decades, and
before them, their parents had occupied the house not long after it was built
in the 1920s. I find this reassuring in an era when the idea of home can feel transient.
The relentless pace of overdevelopment across Sydney has
made homes like the one at Fourth Avenue increasingly rare. Many older houses are
demolished to make way for soulless apartment complexes. By the time I publish this piece, the
property will almost certainly have sold for an extraordinary sum. I have no
idea what its future holds, but I hope the Gods are kind.
I am only three years away from my number 4 pinnacle year and my fiftieth birthday, a combination that fills me with dread. A phase associated with hard work, responsibility and financial discipline sounds far less exciting than the freedom and creativity I had imagined for myself by middle age. I had hoped that, by age fifty, I would be loosening the grip of conventional working life (no chance). Yet, my perspective shifted after revisiting my childhood home.
Having Saturn in the fourth house of my
natal chart often felt restrictive during my younger years. Looking back,
however, I can see the gift hidden within those limitations. The positive
expression of a fourth-house Saturn is embodied by 40 Fourth Avenue - security, reliability and a sense of belonging - a base from which adventures can be launched.
As a child, I was intensely creative. My head overflowed with ideas for plays, films, stories, drawings, paintings and songs. I knew who I was, and I knew where my talents lay. Somewhere along the road to adulthood, that certainty faded. I now believe that my early confidence was nurtured by two great gifts: a good education and a secure home environment. It has taken many years to appreciate the strength hidden within the number 4 vibration and my fourth-house Saturn. In many ways, I owe that understanding to the home at Fourth Avenue.
Related Cancerian posts:
Gough Whitlam
Bon Scott
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