I Live Where ...

Okay, I confess... I am overdoing this creative writing thing. But I'm blaming it all on how enchanted I was by the I Am From idea which I first discovered at Ilona's blog.

But it's just that this morning I had my teeth cleaned at the dentist's and afterward when I walked through the waiting room, I noticed a few jackets sitting on the chairs with not a soul around to guard them. You can do that here. Everywhere there are little nooks where people leave their coats and hats and scarves unwatched and then actually find them when they return for them later.

I don't think you can do that in every town now... can you? But we still do it here and rather than take that, and other things, for granted, I thought I'd write about what it's like to live where I do...

I Live Where...

I live where most of the houses stand two or three stories tall and are old and close together ... where huge trees line the streets and meet over your head in the middle... where during Autumn, you feel like you're driving in a parade because all the leaves fall and twist down upon your windshield like confetti... where neighborhoods look just as they did 70 years ago, except that the cars are newer.

I live where people of any age still hold the door open for you at convenience stores--even if you walk a little slow they will wait for you... where you hear happy chatter and laughter in the supermarket, yard sales and the Farmer's Market--so much so, that you expect to see people dancing in the streets.... where the Spring morning air makes you feel ten years old again... and when company drives away, they beep the car horn twice.

I live where church bells chime songs three times a day... ice cream trucks bring children racing out of houses in summer... and many homes have a tiny latched door for the milk delivery guy ... where Henshaw's Dairy still will bring you milk and ice cream in their 1950's tan truck and newspaper boys pull blue wagons down quiet Sunday morning streets.

I live where, when you take a weekday afternoon walk, you'll see women hanging their laundry in the backyard or sweeping their sidewalks while wearing aqua dusters and with their hair wound in a scarf... where estate sales in old houses are like trips back to the 1930's and neighbors sit on front porches in wicker during summer evenings so humid that little wisps of steam hang mid-air like fog... where, with your head upon your pillow late at night, the horns of trains sound like the trumpets of Benny Goodman's band.

I live where you can forget sometimes that it's 2006... where I'd love to live for the rest of my life--but if I should leave, I will take this place with me wherever I may go--and then plant it like a seed while hoping it will grow into something as sweet somewhere else.