The Best Kind of Day

You can go back to your childhood for one day. What day and age do you choose?

To quote Joyce Summers, "My, that's a terrible thought."

I pick a day in mid-spring the year I was 4. It's before the awful started. Before I knew to be afraid. Before I knew bad things could happen to me.

I am at my grandparents' house. I stay with my great-grandmother while everyone else is at work. She has chores to do, but she includes me in all of them. We bake biscuits together. She lets me have my own lump of dough to roll out all by myself. I sneak little bites of the dough. We place biscuits on the little black baking sheets, and I play with my doll while Nur gets the rest of our meal ready.

Later we will wash clothes and hang them on the line to dry. We'll take a walk through the back field and go home to pull off the briars that have stuck to my socks. Maybe we'll play Old Maid. But through it all, I will hum and sing and smile and dance, because I know I am loved. I know I am safe, because nothing bad has ever happened to me.

Emily Webb in "Our Town", after she has died, asks to go back for just one day. Mrs. Gibbs says, "No!—At least, choose an unimportant day. Choose the least important day in your life. It will be important enough." Emily chooses her 12th birthday, but she can't bear it, saying, "All that was going on in life and we never noticed."

So I choose an unimportant day. A day when life was so normal. The best kind of day to remember.

linking up with Writer's Workshop

Location, Location, Location

Describe my location . . . 

Sometimes I think location is more a state of mind. In Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town", Rebecca recounts this episode:

REBECCA:
I never told you about that letter Jane Crofut got from her minister when she was sick. He wrote Jane a letter and on the envelope the address was like this: It said: Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover's Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America.

GEORGE:
What's funny about that?

REBECCA:
But listen, it's not finished: the United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God--that's what it said on the envelope. 

I like that somehow. The way it ties us all up together no matter how many miles may separate us physically, we are all within the Mind of God.

My physical location is a subdivision in south Nashville, Tennessee. Crieve Hall was built mostly in the 1950's, but has retained it's value probably due to its central location, and the fact that there are no major thoroughfares. When we first began looking for a house in this neighborhood (some 18 years ago), I told my husband it was like being sucked into the Bermuda Triangle. You could drive in circles and never get out! 

I really like it though. Our kids went to the neighborhood elementary school that is within walking distance from our house. My son's best friend still lives across the street from us, even though they are both away at the same university now. 

When the weather is nice, we walk around the neighbor, stopping to chat with people and letting all the dogs inspect each other. It's a little like "Leave It to Beaver", but just the good parts. We even had our own Eddie Haskell (but he's grown into a really nice young man). 

We've looked at other houses over the years. Thought about moving into a newer community with all the bells and whistles, but somehow we've never been able to find somewhere else that felt like home. So my home is "quaint" as a recent visitor commented. But that's okay with me, because I'm certainly more "quaint" than "upscale".

linking up with 31 day blog challenge