It all hit me like a gust of wind while I ran down the gravel driveway. With the smell of honeysuckles in the air and my “Dorothy braids” blowing higher and higher as I ran towards our house with the grey steps.
Everything from this chapter in my childhood is embedded in a certain noise or smell. Every time I think back on that house on founders path I am bombarded with the feeling of always creating my own little world on the outside of that triangular mansion. My sister and I always spent most of our days either splashing down our white water slide into our pool or running back and forth from the hot tub that was set in the middle of a wooden death trap that one of us always risked needing a splinter taken out of their foot from.
We spent many sunsets as little girls out on that deck creating our versions of make believe, or we would sit on the grassy back yard watching the birds fly to the many bird feeders our dad had set up. We also had a baby swing back there (also wooden) if my memory serves me that eventually graduated into a tire swing on the other side of the house. Some days we would run off the bus straight through the side path through the woods along side of our pool and swing first before we even went inside.
This is what I’m talking about. Why was I so attracted to being outside of this beautiful house? I always wanted to be in the back yard hunting for wild strawberries in the summer. Or spend time underneath or front steps where my sister and I created a hidden club house.
Looking back as an adult I’m surprised our only trouble we ran into on these adventures were a few ticks and poison ivy. We literally used to sit in dirt and leaves and who knows what insects or animals lived there when we weren’t playing. We once encountered a possum in our garbage shed outside, but aside from that we were very fortunate to “make it out alive.”
I would never have let half of these adventures slide now that I’m a parent.
If I remember correctly, my sister and I would run from neighbors house to neighbors house, some had kids and some didn’t. I feel like there was an old couple that had a grandkid and I remember liking to visit their house for the doll house collection. Then another neighbor was my parents friends …. they had pet chipmunks we would like to visit. I remember the abundance of blue hydrangeas in front of their house at the end of summer. Then there was the neighbor who had the huge pool and she would always feed us when we came over and of course their was our best friends next door. The treat of being in their house was that their mother always had those plastic squeeze sugary ice pops and we were allowed to have as many as we wanted. They also had a tree house and huge hills we would love to run down.
I feel like my parents always assumed we were there but I remember it differently. I remember riding my bike down to the end of our neighborhood to an older girlfriends house and if she wasn’t home continuing down to the beach. We lived not far from it probably a five mile walk but I remember going alone or with my sister or friends a lot! Just picking seashells or beach glass and watching the seagulls …. how was this ok?
Did it happen because I didn’t tell them or because they never asked or cared to look?
I also remember riding my bike down a dirt road on the other side of the neighborhood that came out by the Main Street to go get candy. Rock candy to be specific. We would ride through a corn field. Men would be working there and no other adults/chaperones were in sight …. how was I never in danger?
I don’t know if times were different or I had guardian angels.
It makes me wonder, now that I’m a mom, if I would have liked to have my kids grow up in a childhood like I did where if you fell off your skateboard the neighbors would come and mend your injury then walk you home …. or if I like the fear and don’t talk to strangers one?
I know I had “don’t talk to strangers” instilled in me yet I was always comfortable on the outside of our house all alone. In fact I craved it. I didn’t want to be inside. If I was, in my bedroom I was introverted, listening to music and planning my next escape out the window to the neighbors house.
It’s amazing how different childhood is today. What has changed that our children can’t be carefree like we were? Is it that we are just more aware of the dangers of the world?
As I reflect on the great memories of my childhood, they center around the outdoors and I want my kids to have those outdoor care free memories too.
