Dear Reader,
Well hello! I don't exactly know what to say here, or how to get the words on paper right; but I figured my thoughts aught to go somewhere, right? I also figured a good place to start with all my thoughts would be to give the best most entertaining and exciting synopsis on my life so far. I might as well start now, the longer I procrastinate the more I'll have to write about.
I grew up with my mom and dad, my older sister (K), and my little sister ($). We lived on a street where everyone knew everyone, and no one Karen'd there way onto hit lists. Well technically i only lived on that street until $ was out of a crib, then we needed more space so we swapped houses with my dads mom and are to this day living in his childhood house. Despite moving away from living in the duplex with MomMom in the four bedroom house next door, most of my childhood was still spent on that street.
I learned so much about so many people on that street, every house had a friend of the family living there, Mrs. L down in the brown house would always make us soup, K.C.'s parents hated mine but they still let me use their trampoline, and the house with all the animal figurines always had wild animals in the back yard. A weekend at MomMom's house was never boring. The best part about an "everybody known everybody" neighborhood was that everyone shared what they had. The neighbors across the street always had a fully stocked cookie jar on their porch with a ceramic lid on it to keep out the bugs, two doors up the street had so many books I was genuinely convinced as a kid that it was the local library, and down at the end of the street, right by the cul-de-sac, an old man let us draw on his massive 4 car driveway with chalk paint he'd mix for us.
All of our backyards were connected, you could walk from one end of the street to the other behind everyone's houses and only run into one fenced in yard, and that was only because he had chickens. We would drive our kiddie motorbikes and motorized cars around the yards for hours. Fallen trees became the planks of pirate ships, the holes from the roots would be portals to other dimensions (they were always bad dimensions as told by our parents so we wouldn't try climbing down into them). That street was a little over-imaginative kids DREAM.
When we moved from that street to my dad's childhood house, our Nana moved in where we were, which only made that street better in my opinion. She taught me how to use a needle and thread, and paid me 25 cents a jar to sort her buttons for her. Nana had a garden in her back yard, it had something tasty growing no matter the season; except winter where everything moved into the greenhouse with the fish tank. in spring we'd go out and pick the strawberries and blueberries she'd grow and eat them right off the vine. My sisters always made fun of her for worrying too much, and never really got along with her, but I adored every second i got to spend with her. Even now I love seeing her, though it's much less often.
If I kept going about my childhood I'd be here for chapters, so for your sake I'll wrap it up. I truly believe that my childhood shaped me as a person. For better or worse I came out the way I did because of the people I was surrounded by. I love my family, especially my grandmothers. Laying awake some nights I let my mind drift back to the time I spent on that street and how grateful I am to have a village like that to raise me. I will probably tell more stories from that street in future posts, but for now I gotta pay attention to work.
~Luna
No comments:
Post a Comment