As we near E's Goodbye Day at her little local kindergarten, I'm definitely melancholy. I've come to realize recently, more and more, how much I like things to stay the same, at least in their trappings. I live in the neighborhood where I grew up, in the house of my adolescence; E goes to my old preschool, and will move on next year to the school I attended for 12 years, along with my sissy. She spends summers in the very houses where my mother herself was once a child. I've brought A and E along with me on my quest for continuity; and, largely, it's worked out for all of us. E is going to have a mostly sweet growing up in this neighborhood--she's already known the daily walk through the calm streets, through the iron gate, down the church walkway under the overhanging trees and past the blooming roses, up the marble steps to her classrooms full of kind children and lined with casement windows. I took that walk, and sat in those classrooms, when I was five. I know, I know, it won't always be perfect, I romanticize, but as long as I can recognize my surroundings, and recognize myself there, how well it fits! And childhood, although we are moving tomorrow out of one phase, can last as long for E as it rightfully should.
E has a little corsage for Goodbye Day, orchids for her refinement and innocence, and rosemary for remembrance:
Long live childhood!
2 comments:
I appreciate your quest for the continuity. Where we currently live most people have lived here all their lives and are raising their kids here also. At my daughters 8th grade grad - there were several kids I didn't know, but more I did and many that we've known since preschool. I love that. Karrie
Yes, our neighborhood in Brooklyn, believe it or not, is really like a town within the huge city! Cozy.
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