Writer’s Workshop – My childhood neighborhood

First just let me say that I had every intention of lightening up around here, but Mama Kat sucked me in with this one.  Sorry Jen – but I have a plan for next week!

The neighborhood I grew up in.  A tiny little village of about 200, not even big enough to warrant a dot on a map.  My house was perched on the edge of a cliff, the front looking down on the river below.

The backyard was home to the peach tree I grew myself, planted from a peach pit, which eventually bore so much fruit my dad had to brace the limbs with 2x4s so they wouldn’t break off.

There was just enough room to run around the side of the house, which is where my sisters and I tried every summer to catch a bunny in a box.  If you didn’t run carefully, you might fall off into the jagger bushes like our neighbor Tony did.  I’ll never forget the sight of his bloody face, and his assurance that it was fine because his mom wouldn’t notice.

We lived at the end of a dead end street which was perfect for bike riding.  I learned on a glorious 70s banana seat bike, which I’m pretty sure was also decked out with bicentennial streamers.

Just down the road lived the Walkos, my dearest friends and second family.  They had 5 children and their house was always a blissful, happy mess.  They reminded me of The Family Circus, and more than anything I wanted to grow up and be just like Chris Walko, the most laid-back mom I have ever known.  My dad was convinced that if she were absolutely furious she’d say something like ‘Oh dear!’.  Her policy was that if it didn’t cause death or dismemberment it was fine with her, so you can see why this would be a most appealing place for a child to spend her time.

I lived at the Walko’s, in the summer especially.  We spent hours climbing trees, swinging on ropes, playing baseball on the hill, traipsing through the woods in search of broken glass… They were my friends, my brothers, my loves.  It was great playing with them, but really I wanted to be one of them.  My sisters were much older and I was lonely – at the Walko’s house I was never lonely.  We played Commodore 64 and melted crayons in the oven and ate break-apart twin pops till our hearts content.  I have not a single memory of my hometown that isn’t entwined with their family, who seemed like an extension of my own.

Pumpkin Run Park was down the side of the cliff, a long walk in the woods away.  This was where we snuck off to fish or swim or play in the old jail, and scare each other with stories about Stovepipe, all the while pretending to laugh it off.  We were young and brave and fearless and stupid, and it was beautiful.

We went to the lockwall and jumped foolishly off of the highest swing set I’ve ever seen, and it was glorious.

It was an idyllic, picture-perfect childhood.

And then I got older.

Suddenly the small town that had kept me safe and sheltered seemed smothering.  You couldn’t do anything without everyone knowing your business, and this is not something that a teenager particularly enjoys.

At the same time I felt very isolated.  We had nothing to do.  No fast food, no real [respectable] hangouts.  The mall or the movies were 45 minutes away.  There was no culture.  No diversity.  Differences weren’t valued in a town full of old white people.

I started counting the days until I could escape.

I began writing, and even worked for a newspaper in that big town 45 minutes away.  I rocked out to loud, angst-y music that no one else I knew listened to, and I cried at night, wondering why I was stuck in a place where no one understood me.  The neighborhood that was once so perfect and full of possibility in my eyes became a place I scorned.

And finally, finally, we left.  We moved 3 states away and I found what I had been missing.  I found diversity.  Acceptance.  People like me.

I could wear black and combat boots and dye my hair crazy colors…and still be a part of the FCA and morning prayer around the flag pole.  I could listen to the Violent Femmes and Stephen Curtis Chapman, and I could find myself – whoever that was – without being pigeonholed into a clique.  I was part of it all – the good kids, the bad kids, the outcasts, the in crowd.  I was just me, for the first time in my life.

And then I cried at night, overwhelmed with gratitude that I had made it out.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————

All these years later, my view of the neighborhood I grew up in is conflicted.  I still feel my heart swell when I think of the Walkos.  I remember people like Mr. Hartley, who did everything in sweet, slow motion.  I think of things like my high school bedroom ode to the Chicago Bulls, and I miss long winter days spent sled-riding on the steep hill of the firehall.

This is the place that brought me my first love and my first broken heart.

The house that built me.

And I can’t help but feel a twinge of sad nostalgia for it all.

A simpler time, a simpler place.  The kind of childhood I took for granted.  The kind of childhood my children will never know.

When I think about it in those terms, I’m ready to move back.

[And with a quick Google search showing me that I can buy a 3 bedroom house on 2 lots with a guest house for under $100k, that sounds even more tempting]

My childhood neighborhood now feels to me like so many other things in an adult life.

Complicated.

Depressing.

Bittersweet.

And beautiful – I can’t forget beautiful.

I wouldn’t change a thing – except maybe the move.

Maybe it was a good place to grow up, after all.

More Writer’s Workshop works can be found here.

6 Comments

• 

  By Jen, August 27, 2010 @ 11:57 am

  I’ll forgive you. This was just too awesome not to.

  I wish I had known you in that childhood.

  I’m thinking of your sister, and how you said she believed she had to live there all those years just so that she could meet her husband. There IS a reason you were there, you know. You wouldn’t be the kickass you that you are if you hadn’t had the life that you have. Every experience, good and bad, shapes us into who and what we are. For once, maybe you should cut yourself some slack and realize that what you are is pretty incredible.

  And srsly, I cannot believe that you made me get all mushy. You better get fluffy ASAP – I can’t take any more of this crap.

  [Reply]

  

  Heather Reply:
  August 27th, 2010 at 12:33 pm

  I think we both know you were fighting off the urge to throw in an ‘I love you’ there.

  [Reply]
• 

  By Caren - Crazy Catch, August 27, 2010 @ 2:19 pm

  I am totally stealing this idea.

  I think we might have had similar childhood paths. Having just moved back to ‘home’ after living elsewhere for 25 years, I’m both loving and hating the ‘fitting back in’ process. Some things never change, and sometimes that is good – it’s just that so much bad has stayed the same, too!

  [Reply]
• 

  By Emily, August 27, 2010 @ 3:02 pm

  Wonderful posts and pictures!

  I never seemed to fit in with my few neighborhood “friends”. It wasn’t until college that I began to realize that being different was actually a good thing!
  Emily´s last [type] ..Five Images of a Perfect Summer

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  By ElizOF, August 28, 2010 @ 6:56 am

  Heather,
  You have singularly made me want to go and write about my childhood neighborhood. You pulled me right into your story and I felt like I was part of your childhood and young adulthood experience. Keep writing you did a beautiful job!
  I stopped by from MamaKat’s Writing Workshop; I wrote on Unconditional Love and could use some feedback. Thank you!
  Have a great weekend!
  Best,
  Elizabeth
  ElizOF´s last [type] ..For Love’s Sake- What Does Unconditional Love Mean To You

  [Reply]

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