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[I've had a bit of writer's block lately. So I decided I'm not going to think so much about what to write and just write. And since my blog is called Dreams of Simple Life, I think it’s only appropriate that I talk a bit more about simple life and what exactly that means to me...]
When you grow up in a small town, I think the desire for the simple life always lives in you. It certainly does inside me. And there isn't much I can do to shake it.
This is the home that held the first 17 years of my life. This is where I lived amongst the Italian immigrants in my neighborhood, waking up to the sound of a bat hitting a baseball 9 out of 10 days in the spring, a sprinkler head click-click-clicking in the summer, rainbows of leaves falling to the ground in the fall, the sound of a snow shovel scraping the driveway on a wintry Saturday morning.
It's a home with window-unit AC and radiators because that's all you really need to stay cool or warm in a small cottage. After playing in the snow, we layered our wet mittens and scarves on the radiator until they were dry and toasty warm.
It just occurred to me while writing this that I'm close to having lived more of my life outside
of that house than inside of it. I don’t get many chances these days to visit this adorable house on Myrtle, although my parents still live there as if nothing has changed. And you know, not much has. My Cabbage Patch Kid, Carrie, is still perched atop the pink pillows on my bed, waiting for me.
Madison is the picture-perfect-small-town, whose locals gather at the Nautilus Diner every Saturday morning and talk about who’s marrying whom, the new addition that so-and-so put on his house, and how the CJ's Deli team did in Little League last weekend. There's no rush-hour traffic unless you count the long line of cars and vans stacked outside the elementary school at 3:15pm.
Madison is a town that you don't appreciate growing up because it's so small and not much happens and so you go away to college far away, vowing never to return. And then four years later, you can't wait to return to settle down and before you know it, you've been a teacher at the elementary school for 20 years. It's a unique place where I can't imagine my parents not living, and I hope they never move away.
So many memories are hidden in this hometown of mine...
~ Creeping inside my mom’s closet at age 2 and emerging with her high-heels on the wrong feet and a mischievous grin on my face.
~ Watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade every year with my grandfather, “Poppy” and listening to his stories of working in classy New York City in the 1920s.
~ Futile attempts to tackle my (9 1⁄2 years older) brother while he watched WWF, only for him to bust out the Figure 4 Leg-lock or Flying Jimmy Snuka and effortlessly pin me to the floor.
~ My poor parents wrestling with me during one of my many temper tantrums as a child, including the famous time I stuck a piece of chalk up my nose.
~ Many late-night snacks of Entemann’s donuts and milk and toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the island in the kitchen with my Daddy.
~ My friend Debbie and I spending endless hours building a miniature suspension bridge out of balsa wood for 12th grade Physics, complete with a mini bungie jumper hanging from a rubber band.
~ Mom and I planning our exotic mother-daughter trips during one of our brisk bike rides through the neighborhood.
~ Mourning when our pets Dutchess, Topaze, Chelsea, and Oreo went to animal heaven.
~ Facing my first breakup as I cried on the floor of my bedroom closet.
~ Receiving my acceptance letter to Belmont University.
~ Playing in the driveway many a summer evening - hopscotch, chalk drawings, and my bike with training wheels and streamers.
but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right."
~Maya Angelou
More memoirs about my small town here and here.
