When I graduated from high school, I left my sleepy hometown in southern New Jersey and never looked back, apart from occasional visits. While I was in college, coming home gave me a growing sense of smug superiority. I felt as if Big City Me was too good for the hickville I was from, looking down my nose at the people who stayed.
Things changed as I got older and wiser. No longer was the landscape comprised of backwoods drabness, but a new color began to emerge. The beauty of forest and field, of swamp and seaside, the broken shutters and chipped paint, even the lawn ornaments and rusty, engine-less vehicles worn by the front yard grasses like status symbols are things to marvel. The land takes on a whole new life passing by my moving car too quickly for me to get my fill and take it all in.
Visits home, especially since I had Samantha, have become so much more fun and enjoyable, a veritable feast for the eyes. I even see beauty in the sad, decaying and abandoned structures, found in such abundance they could be used to build a small metropolis. One day I’ll be sure to do the even-a-clinically-depressed-ghost-wouldn’t-live-here photo tour of South Jersey. Hard to do when travelling with a small child.
Speaking of just such a small child…
Samantha and I played hooky from work and school on Friday and drove up to visit my family for the weekend. She’s such a great traveller these days that the 4 hour drive is truly enjoyable. We lucked out with a sunny, cloudless sky and 70+ degree temperatures, and I had made plans ahead of time to visit with some old friends while we were there.
There were a lot of “firsts” for Samantha on this trip.
A visit to the home of my childhood piano teacher, a warm, strong woman with patience of steel who taught me for 10 years through grade school and high school. Samantha got her first experience playing a duet on a Steinway.
A visit to the local mall to meet up with a high school friend. No firsts here, but my sweet, un-napped child had a serious case of the raging sillies, the kind where she is easily betrayed by the mischievous grin on her face just before she takes off running, the kind that shows she knows full-well the subtle nuances of humor and annoyance (and boy does she know how to push the right buttons), laughing all the way. The kind that’s impossible to do anything but laugh right back at. And I did (while hoping the shop managers didn’t think our bolting out the door had anything to do with five-fingered discounts).
On to the homestead, formerly my grandparent’s home, on a sprawling former soybean and Christmas tree farm. A sturdy, A-frame house built back in ’73, on property that has remained in the family for over a century. Lots of fun childhood memories - I am grateful that it is still ours, ready to create new memories for Samantha.
Another morning, cooler, but no less beautiful, perfect for exploring and playing, enjoying fresh air and exercise and a spirited game of duck-duck-GOOSE...
...a makeshift version of hide and seek (as much as you can when standing in the middle of an open field)...
...and guess-which-hand-it's-in with driveway stones.
A visit with a childhood friend, one with whom I built forts out of blankets and dining chairs, played horse farm with our Breyer horses, went to horseback riding camp, and wished for overnight snowstorms that would strand us in an endless playdate (forgetting that we just might kill each other by the end); a visit with her horses and the resident duck, Frances.
Samantha’s first puppy love.
Beauty and the Beast.
A first tractor ride with Pops, mirroring the ones I took with my Pop Pop on the same land when I was a child. No less joy for either of us, 35 years later. So proud of my girl…
A little role-playing...
“Time out, Mommy! Stay right there! NO talking, NO toys, NO books, NO playing…” (giggles) “… NO grass, NO trees, NO sky, NO clouds, NO stars, NO barn, NO car, NO house!”
Think she said it all.
I have a new appreciation for where I'm from. While I wouldn't ever live there again, necessarily, it's a place I love to visit, and a place I want Samantha to get to know. My roots run deep.
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