I stop at an Old Navy before our appointment with the home inspector; they always have the cutest little girl clothing for such great prices. I time the drive from the store to our new home: twelve minutes! How thrilling to be so close to a shopping center with Old Navy AND Target.
Our bid is accepted, and I share the news with my parents. I time the drive from their home to our new one: seven minutes. I won’t ever come by unannounced, my mom promises. She’s kept that promise. Sometimes we run into each other at a local store, and that little surprise brightens my day.
I find a neighborhood park in my ADC map book; it’s so close to our home! I buckle my newborn and preschooler into their car seats in our new minivan, and set out. I drive up and down streets, but the park seems to be cloaked in invisibility. After reassuring my daughter that we’re almost there at least four times, I finally stumble upon the park entrance. That park is my savior for years, coming to my rescue during that afternoon witching hour.
I walked Nellie, and now I walk Hazel, on the same route almost every day. Sometimes we change it up; there are dozens of routes I could take through the maze of streets and courts. Every once in a while we walk past our park, where my kids played and slid and flipped and climbed. Occasionally a driver will honk as she passes by and I wave. I assume it’s someone I know, but the sun glare of the windshield makes it impossible to tell.
Within a year of B and her family moving next door over a decade ago, she was one of my closest friends. I knew we would raise our children side by side, and we spent hours sitting on the curb as the kids played Capture the Flag and street hockey. I imagined that we would celebrate our children’s milestones, and our own, together.
We will still do that, but we have to try harder. Everything I loved about the house next door is in California now, and my dear friend has a new next door neighbor on the other side of the country.
The silver lining is that I have another dear friend two houses over, and as far as I know she has no plans to move. We take walks many afternoons, Hazel trotting along beside us. My first memory of her is from a September morning in 2002, when the street was filled with the cars of friends and family arriving to meet her new son. They must have had their baby, I said to Matt about our new neighbors. They did, and both of our baby boys have grow up together at the bottom of the cul-de-sac. Our baby girls too.
My neighborhood has a Google group, where people can share information about anything, from plumbers to tutors, from selling used furniture to looking for a babysitter. There are wacky people on that group, and a few of us laugh offline about the absurdity of some comments. Must Joan separately post the eleven things she sells every weekend? And does anyone really want her avocado green rotary phone for the low, low price of $20? Do we really need to hear about every driver speeding through the neighborhood (car make, model, and license plate included)? No, but these kooky people care about the community in which they live, and I’ll take that over apathy any day.
I used to see my neighborhood friends all the time, at school or sports-related events. Now that I don’t drive any kids around, and my one child at home doesn’t play a team sport, I miss running into those friends. Spontaneous get-togethers don’t happen, so I must be proactive. I must reach out to friends, and make plans. I need to cultivate the friendships I want to thrive beyond the “raising kids” stage.
Matt and I will be empty nesters in about fifteen months. While we have no plans to move while we have a child in college, I know that we will need to make a decision about this house at some point. Will we move? There are so many factors to consider: where our kids move, our parents, Matt’s job, and our friends. Without the people we’ve grown to love in this neighborhood, our home is just a building and a yard.
I drive down our street this afternoon. Yesterday the trees lining either side were bare, and today the branches are awash with the beginnings of green leaves. As I clear the slight hill, I see our house ahead of me, and I marvel at the fact that we own this structure of brick and siding, shingles and windows. I pull up the driveway and into the garage, letting the newly repaired garage door close behind me. I am home.
What a beautiful walk down memory lane!
Love this! 💜 I am smiling and crying as I read. I love our ‘hood. And my awesome neighbor!
Back at ya!
The neighborhood chat made me laugh! We have one too and I always think of what a source of fiction it could be. Even though it’s real!
It really could be fiction, or at least a comedy skit.
Great post, thanks! I really feel like I have a sense of your neighborhood from this! And I totally wish my neighborhood had a google group 🙂
Ha – it’s not always a good thing!
I just got choked up!!!! You aren’t EVER allowed to leave our neighborhood.
Unless you leave…then I’m following you. We could turn a retirement community on its ear…
I know what shopping center you were talking about! It’s the one with the Carrabba’s and Barnes and Noble, yes? We moved away from there 13 years ago next month, which is so hard to believe! Fortunately, you know you made a good investment. Property values in your area seem to be economy fool-proof!
Well, I don’t know about that, but we did make a good investment. And yes, that’s the shopping center!
I have a similar experience when I’m out and about in my city. I feel like I can’t go anywhere without running into someone I know!
It’s cool, though, isn’t it?
Memory lane is always full of warm reminiscences. Now that I am moving, this post makes me think about the first years of living here in Laurel. Amazing how time flies! BTW, ever since seeing the title of your post, I can’t get the song from My Fair Lady of the same name out of my head!
Haha – sorry to get that earworm in your head! Best of luck with your move…I hope it goes smoothly.
Funny how ‘neighborhood’ is a different thing for different people even (especially) when they might in most regards be very, very similar in terms of physical characteristics. Of course, that is what the human element to any organization does, manifests a thing, an experience, differently for different people.
I’ve probably said this on another comment (and I tend to say it frequently in any event), the gift of this blogosphere is to be allowed a glimpse into another’s life, another person’s world, their reality. This can only enhance our own lives.
I completely agree, Clark!
These times of having to make decisions, of whether to move or whether to stay, after the children have all grown up and others in the neighborhood are making decisions as to whether to stay or to move are hard ones. Then there is the need to reach out and cultivate new friendships once the ones that were a part of one’s life through similar interests of one’s children no longer exist. Life continues to cause us to change and to grow.
I enjoyed reading your FTSF post very much.
I appreciate that, Pat – thank you! And you’re right, life will go on, and we will change and grow into our new realities.
I can relate to so many things in this post, Dana. The most recent one is the fact that my friend who saved my sanity when our children of the same age were growing up together has just sold her house. It’s the end of an era. However, I do still have my friends in the “dog-walking” group who gather every day up at the park. And I do have that driver who honks at me as I walk home with Poppy from our dog walks. As with you, I’ve no idea who it is as the sun is always glaring on her/his windshield and, without the need for school pickup anymore, I don’t recognize the car.
Wonderful, evocative writing as usual, Dana.
Thank you Kelly! I’m anticipating the end of an era in the next 5-10 years, and I have mixed emotions about that.
So beautiful and evocative. And it’s always hard when such good friends move away! I don’t live near my parents but I live near one set of in-laws. We have run into each other in public which is really funny, but when she brought a new friend to the Passover Seder, I instantly knew who her friend was. That was pretty wild.
That is cool. My friends will run into my mother, which is funny. I hear “I saw your mom at the nail salon today…”
I have a new appreciation for my neighborhood now, after being here for almost nine years and soon to leave it. I totally related to telling your daughter you were almost at the playground four times when it was right there. I remember those days, not knowing where anything was, and now, I could walk there with a blind fold on. I’m jealous you’re so close to your parents too. That’s one thing that will definitely be better about moving to Colorado.
True! And now at least you have Google maps; I had that dumb map book spread open on the passenger seat, trying to find the playground!
So jealous of paragraph #2. It made me smile though. I feel like I’m getting sort of homesick after all these years away from my parents. I guess that’s something that happens when they get older.
Fifteen months! I’m not going to say that’ll fly by because it mean Christopher will then be going to high school. Waaaah!
Yes, let’s not make it fly by, please. We will have to have a virtual coffee date and drown our sorrows then.
Love everything about this post. So lucky to live in a crazy fun neighborhood with wonderful people who really do care. Even the one’s on the Google group 😉
Ha – exactly Patti!
You always write such perfect posts! Very evocative.
Thank you Liz!
It’s amazing what happens in the life of a house! We are 11 years in a home we built and I have all those emotions and reflections and cannot imagine what it will be like 11 years from now. This was beautifully written (as usual) and I also just love how appreciative you are of all the little things in life, that really make up the big things!
They really do! I can’t believe we’ve been in our home for almost 17 years. It’s hard to imagine ever leaving, but I’m sure we will at some point.
I absolutely loved this walk down memory lane of your earliest memories to your most recent in your own neighborhood here tonight, Dana! 🙂
Thank you Janine!