our house is not in the middle of our street

summer. one of several parks near our home. boys wielding swords, fighting off evil forces or something important.

In my neighborhood, there is a college-aged man who rides his skateboard down the street while he sings. Sometimes he loudly proclaims his political beliefs. Yesterday he was singing, though.

On the same street as the singing skateboarder, there is a bookstore. It has been around since 1977 in a little old blue house and it smells like paper and chocolate. At least once a week, some fancy-pants author comes to sign books and talk to us lay people at the art gallery a few shops down. Sometimes they have cookies.

You know that old man that works as crossing guard by the elementary school? His name is Bernie. All of the kids that walk to school say, "Good morning, Bernie" and "Thank you, Bernie" and he says, "Have a great day." He also gives really mean looks to cars that don't obey his sign holding and hand gesturing. Sometimes he yells at the kids who cross too soon. But on that one day when my five year-old was crossing and a car stopped too close to him, Bernie let that driver have it. I don't mind when he calls me "lady" anymore.

In my neighborhood, there are a lot of artists and writers and lawyers and doctors and handymen and plumbers and engineers and students and shop owners and bakers and photographers and bankers and entrepreneurs and government officials and teachers and stay-at-home moms. I like that. Guess what, kids? You can do a lot of things in life. Isn't that fantastic? There are also a lot of women who are married and keep their maiden names or hyphenate the last name. Nobody cares. 

We can walk to get some milk. Or go the other direction for some bagels and hot chocolate. Or walk a few blocks to really fancy restaurants. Two libraries are within 5 miles of our home. TWO! And four or twelve parks. One of them is ginormous. I run around it sometimes with my friend. When it snows, kids ride sleds down its massive hills.

We live really close to some hospitals. One of them is Primary Children's where kids from all over Utah and a few neighboring states come for serious things. My heart breaks a little every time I hear a helicopter over my house. And I say a little prayer. 

I don't know how I could ever leave my neighborhood. The minute we moved here, it felt like home. We don't have a garage, no room for a trampoline, no space for an extra freezer, and we can see our back neighbors 7 months out of the year when the grape leaves are gone. But, BOY, it feels like it was drawn just for us and we were molded just for it. Oh, did I tell you that we've got trees that line the streets? We do.

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