My parents built my childhood home in 1973. Five years later, I was born. While I was growing up there, we had some really good friends. Sassy and my mom were really good friends. Stephen, Sassy's youngest child, and my brother Ben grew up together in the same neighborhood. There was only this green grassy field separating our houses. Ben and Stephen made good use out of this field. It served as a baseball diamond and a football field. They played many games of cork ball and even splattered eggs onto the adjoining neighbor's fence. It served as a path between two young boys who were the best of friends.
Melinda, Stephen's older sister would walk across the field to our house to get me and she would walk back through that same field to her house with me in tow. She used to walk to our house a lot tell my mom that she had me and take me over to her house for awhile. She would paint my nails every color of the rainbow. She would brush what little hair I had and pull it up by the roots on top of my head. When I got a little older, I walked through the field to their house and Sassy would fix hot dogs heated in the microwave for me. This was a real treat considering that we did not own a microwave at that time. She would cut them up for me. They were so good.
When I was a preteen Sassy introduced me to Heather who would soon become my best friend. I am surprised that we did not wear a path through that field as many times as we would go back and forth through it from her house to mine and vice versa. Heather and I used to do somersaults and handstands in that field. We played homerun derby, hide-n-go seek, and german spotlight in that field. German spotlight was a lot of fun because we played it in the dark. It was a lot like hide-n-go seek except instead of actually having to tag someone all you had to do was shine a flashlight on them. We also would ride our bikes through that field. There was this one strip of land along the side of the neighbor's fence and we would ride our bikes down the decline into the street. Then we we ride our bikes up the incline and do it all over again. We called it the rollcoaster. Looking back now, I don't suppose it was the smartest or the safest thing to do, but we did it anyway. We ran through that field with wild abandon and without a care in this world. It served as a path for two girls who were the best of friends.
The boys would play sports and the girls would gather those tiny little white flowers and make necklaces and bracelets. Also one of our favorite past times, was picking dandelions from the field and blowing on them watching their feathery substance float to the ground. If I came back from Heather's house in the dark, I took off running and just before I reached my driveway my foot would land in this hole and I would fall flat on my face. It never failed. I guess that is what I got for being afraid of the dark. When Heather and I were teenagers we designated a meeting place half way down the field to exchange clothes. We would end up talking for awhile. Then we would say "good night" and go off in different directions back to our houses respectively. Indeed, our field served many purposes. It could be magical at night with a million stars shining brightly up overhead. Maybe, I am romanticizing a little. It's my blog I can romanticize if I want to.
Why all of the nostaglia you might ask? Sigh. Well, Sassy doesn't live there anymore. In fact, her house has had two predecessors. The current inhabitants have decided to destroy my childhood field. My childhood field is being enclosed with a wooden gate-no more wide open space. And if that wasn't enough, they have hired employees from Aloha pools most likely to put in one of those hideous above ground swimming pools. They dug up the sacred soil of which our happy feet once trod. Okay. So call me a sentimental drama queen. I don't care. They disturbed the delicate emotional balance of my childhood memories that have been well perserved. When I surveyed this eyesore, a song came to my mind and one line in particular from this song: "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot". Well, in this case they paved paradise and put up an above ground swimming pool. I feel like I am living across from the "Beverly Hillbillies". It was a child's paradise with no restrictions. A big wide open space full of potential with a big lusicious and green magnolia tree stationed in the corner. It's gone now and it saddens me. I feel like as Jewel says in her new song "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland, that "my childhood is scattered along the highway".
A friend of mine who has a four year old child and I were having a conversation the other day. She, her husband, and their daughter decided to move away from their old neighborhood because it was getting a little too shady. She wants her child safe and protected. It's not too much to ask. In this day in time, is there any such thing as a safe place? Is she or her little friends going to be able to grow up in a wide open space? Are they going to be able to run through a big green field with wild abandon without a care in this world? They deserve the right to be footloose and fancy free kids, don't they? Somehow and at some point we must take back the reigns of this society and forge on ahead with aspirations for a brighter future. You deserve the right to be a kid and sometimes you have to fight for it. Wouldn't it be wonderful, to remain eternally innocent? Wouldn't it be wonderful to view the world through the unclouded perception of a child? Antoine de Saint once wrote, "And the little prince said to the man", "Grownups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always explaining things to them".
I would like to enter the magical world of Capeside for a moment. Capeside is the fictional town set in Massachusetts on the now syndicated Dawson's Creek. This particular scene takes place in the sixth season and the next to last episode ever of the beloved teen drama series. In the first season, the offbeat character of Jen Lindley came to town in a cab to live with her grandmother, who she affectionately called "Grams". She saw Joey, Pacey, and Dawson messing around with each other on the dock, knowing immediately that she wanted to be apart of that innocence. In the six season, she, Jack, and Grams are all leaving Capeside for New York City where Jen is from originally. The big yellow taxi pulls up to take them away. No doubt she hears the soundtrack of her life playing in the background. She turns around to take one last look around and says, "What is this feeling? It just seems like everything 's getting smaller and smaller. It's all still there, but I just can't touch it". Jack simply replies, "I think it's called goodbye". On that very same day, Dawson was shooting a movie in tribute to their childhood on the creek. Jen looks in the direction of the actors messing with each other on the dock. It was a nice bookend. She had come full circle. I feel the same way Jen must have felt. It is not easy to let go of your childhood and the place that is the most comforting and familiar. I guess now I will have to visit the Wildflower Farm, where there are droves of wildflowers in this big wide open space. A dreamer could lose him or herself in that field filled with wildflowers. It is a beautiful sight and if you are lucky butterflies flutter down inviting themselves to be your companions.
I am taking mental pictures and playing a silent movie in my mind. On One Tree Hill, the character of Ellie once said, "Every song has a CODA, a final movement. Whether it fades out or crashes away. Every song ends. Is that any reason not to enjoy the music? The truth is, there is nothing to be afraid of. It's just life". When you are a kid you are not aware that your childhood is going to end. In fact, you can't wait to be a grown up. On the other hand, when you are a grown up you wish that you could just be a kid again. Even though my childhood is over I can still hear that soundtrack in my head. It doesn't matter how much noise the workers make in their efforts to construct the vision that their employers have in mind-nothing will drown out of the sound of the echos of an era-children's laughter, singing and excited screams. My childhood may be gone, but it will never be forgotten. It will forever be a part of me and will be remembered with sweet fondness as the soundtrack of my childhood plays faintly through the inner recesses of my mind.
Here is the song in it's entirety mentioned in my blog for posterity. This song has been recorded by such artists such as Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton, but Amy Grant's version is the one that I most remember fondly. She was also one of my role models growing up.
"Big Yellow Taxi" by Amy Grant
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop, shoo-bop-bop-bop
They took all the trees and put 'em in a tree museum
And then they charged all the poeple twenty-five bucks just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop, shoo-bop-bop-bop
Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT now
Give me spots on my apples but leave me the birds and the bees, please
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
I say, they paved paradise and they put up a parking lot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop
Late last night I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi carried off my old man
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone
They paved paradise and they put up a parking lot
Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop
Oh, now, they paved paradise and they put up a parking lot
Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop
Hey, steam rolled paradise and put up a parking lot
Shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop
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