Still here. The world as we know it did not end, as far as I can tell. (This is the second time that Family Radio's Harold Camping has specified a date for our collective demise: May 21, 2011, and yesterday, Oct. 21, 2011. Let's hope that the third time is not the charm.)
If the world did end yesterday, then heaven - or hell if Camping was right about the prospects of us nonbelievers - today looks a lot like my street in Lakewood, this one block of bumpy brick pavement lined with porch-wealthy homes of a certain age, most approaching centenary status. They regard one another through half-shuttered eyes across a mini-veldt of bedsheet-sized lawns edged with bright flowers.
We like it here. We are a sidewalk neighborhood with the library at one end of the street, the bus line at the other, a heaven of small children with harried parents, dog-walking seniors and inveterate putterers, some out of ambition, most out of necessity given the vintage of our homes. (The possibility that heaven might be different for each of us has been explored in at least two contemporary novels - very sweetly in Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, and rudely but humorously in Daniel Pinkwater's The Afterlife Diet. Who am I to argue?)
I will admit, sometimes life here is hellish, like a recent summer when virtually every home in our closely-packed enclave was being re-roofed after a punishing hailstorm. Or the year the aging water main broke repeatedly and we took to showering at the Y and setting aside jugs of water to be sure we could make morning coffee.
Right now, it's a nice time to be here, no longer so hot as to drive us into the air-conditioning and still warm enough to gossip on the front steps. (Once winter arrives, we'll wave to one another with mittened hands as we clear the snow from our blessedly short driveways and may not actually speak again until spring.) But pleasant though it may be, this lovely place is not paradise. Heaven, perhaps, but not paradise. If it were, my basement would be drier.
love it jan..
ReplyDeleteOh I so feel ya sistah! Thank you for following your muse to write! Loved the physical description of the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you like Lakewood. Your street is so cute.
ReplyDeletewell of course it's cute - I live here!
ReplyDeleteDid you ever read any of the children's books about The Stupids? (Not my usual fare.) anyway, in one, the power goes out. When it comes back on, one of the kids says, "Are we dead? This must be heaven!"
ReplyDeleteTo which Grandpa replies, "No--it's Cleveland!"
Not so stupid after all.
made me laugh . .
ReplyDelete