Home is Where You Make It
Every weekday, I make the trek between home and school. Many days, I make it twice, but I can't think of many weekdays in which I haven't made the trip on foot at least once.
There are many things I like about being able to walk. I like that it injects at least 20 minutes of physical movement into my life. I like that it gives me time to think, to process my thoughts about the starting or closing school day. It's a good transition, and it has allowed me to make relationships with some of the people who live in my neighborhood.
As I was making my journey the other day, I thought of how many things, already, have changed about my course.
All through summer, Mr. Lee has his barber shop door open into the street. When he had no customers, he would stand in the doorway to catch the occasional breeze, holding out peppermints the people who walk by. I started accepting them, and we started talking. About his children. About his brothers. About my family. About his history, how he had a barbershop much closer into downtown for forty years, until his rent went up $800 a month in 2000, and he had to move everything further out. I look around at my gentrifying neighborhood, and I wonder if he'll see a time when he's kicked out here too. I hope not.
One day, I walked by his barbershop sniffling and crying on my way home, and he stopped me at his door, took me inside, gave me a glass of water, and told me about how he saw Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966. I made him cupcakes for his birthday, and I have myself committed to someday making him a fish sandwich. And now it's winter, and his door is shut, a very natural turning of the seasons.
The men who used to sit on the stoop so close to Mr. Lee's are no longer there, either. They were uprooted by a "No Trespassing" sign, and now there's no one to call me "Doctor" on my way home from school, no one to commiserate with me when I have to wear professional clothes to school.
There's a house across the crosstown, closer to downtown, that looked like a shit show when I first started walking to school. When I would look at real estate, I would imagine that this house was one of those being offered in the low 100,000s, and I would dream about buying it, fixing it up, and living in it for the next eight years.
In August, or so, a building permit appeared on its door. Two weeks ago, workers flooded the yard and started dismantling this old house. It's more than halfway gone, now, and I am looking forward to seeing what is going up in its place.
I've had a lot of thoughts about buying in the last month. Some of my friends have bought houses, and I sometimes talk with Joe about buying my own house, since he has gone through the process. The biggest task for me is figuring out where I want to live. I could afford some of the houses in my neighborhood, and there is a big part of me that wants my children to have this experience of living in a diverse neighborhood, a place where everyone floods the streets in beautiful weather and where all the men talking on the sidewalk wear hats.
At the same time, though, I like the part of town where Joe lives, where you can hear crickets and summer bugs at night and where I could potentially own a home with a backyard and plenty of room for children and the mastiffs I so desperately want to own.
It's a hard decision, knowing that the place I live already feels like home.
There are many things I like about being able to walk. I like that it injects at least 20 minutes of physical movement into my life. I like that it gives me time to think, to process my thoughts about the starting or closing school day. It's a good transition, and it has allowed me to make relationships with some of the people who live in my neighborhood.
As I was making my journey the other day, I thought of how many things, already, have changed about my course.
All through summer, Mr. Lee has his barber shop door open into the street. When he had no customers, he would stand in the doorway to catch the occasional breeze, holding out peppermints the people who walk by. I started accepting them, and we started talking. About his children. About his brothers. About my family. About his history, how he had a barbershop much closer into downtown for forty years, until his rent went up $800 a month in 2000, and he had to move everything further out. I look around at my gentrifying neighborhood, and I wonder if he'll see a time when he's kicked out here too. I hope not.
One day, I walked by his barbershop sniffling and crying on my way home, and he stopped me at his door, took me inside, gave me a glass of water, and told me about how he saw Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966. I made him cupcakes for his birthday, and I have myself committed to someday making him a fish sandwich. And now it's winter, and his door is shut, a very natural turning of the seasons.
The men who used to sit on the stoop so close to Mr. Lee's are no longer there, either. They were uprooted by a "No Trespassing" sign, and now there's no one to call me "Doctor" on my way home from school, no one to commiserate with me when I have to wear professional clothes to school.
There's a house across the crosstown, closer to downtown, that looked like a shit show when I first started walking to school. When I would look at real estate, I would imagine that this house was one of those being offered in the low 100,000s, and I would dream about buying it, fixing it up, and living in it for the next eight years.
In August, or so, a building permit appeared on its door. Two weeks ago, workers flooded the yard and started dismantling this old house. It's more than halfway gone, now, and I am looking forward to seeing what is going up in its place.
I've had a lot of thoughts about buying in the last month. Some of my friends have bought houses, and I sometimes talk with Joe about buying my own house, since he has gone through the process. The biggest task for me is figuring out where I want to live. I could afford some of the houses in my neighborhood, and there is a big part of me that wants my children to have this experience of living in a diverse neighborhood, a place where everyone floods the streets in beautiful weather and where all the men talking on the sidewalk wear hats.
At the same time, though, I like the part of town where Joe lives, where you can hear crickets and summer bugs at night and where I could potentially own a home with a backyard and plenty of room for children and the mastiffs I so desperately want to own.
It's a hard decision, knowing that the place I live already feels like home.
posted by Another Chance to Get It Right at
11:31 AM
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