This is my neighborhood.
I took Korra for a walk on my running route today. I was on my feet a lot yesterday and wearing my Tevas, and my little feeble broken pinky toe and leg got a little swollen. So I didn’t want to run. I wanted to honor the fact that my poor dog has gone hiking very little since mid-August. I was going to take her over to Four Dances, one of our favorite places to hike, but I really missed my neighborhood constitutionals.
So we walked the streets in Southside.
I LOVE THIS NEIGHBORHOOD. I do not see myself wanting to leave. I love getting to know the houses with dogs. The houses with yards filled with layer upon layer of detritus. I have memorized the yards with cats, the yards that wild bunnies hang out in, the yards with sunflowers, the yards with free food boxes out front. I brought home a beautiful tomato today.
When I run I usually run down to Adams, cross over State Street, then run down 6th until about 33rd, then run up to 4th. At 32nd there are so many even more interesting houses. It seems obvious that houses starting being built from the sugar beet factory, then south west. I think Lucy is probably a house (or structure, I’m still not sure it was built to be a house!) that was built for workers at the flour mill, or the sugar mill both on State Street.
On the 300 block of S. 32nd Street, there is a line of houses that look exactly the same, for the entire city block. I looked them up, they were built around 1912, and they’re TINY around 600 sqft 2b/1ba houses. I heart them. They all have front porches. It looks like Mississippi.
Aren’t they adorable? They mostly look like they’re rentals, but I really love them. They make me smile.
There are some very stately homes in Southside, too. They look like they were built by barons of industry at the turn of the century.
This one for sure looks like the richest of rich built it. It’s a fricken mansion, and right here in my little humble Southside neighborhood.
I just felt like writing a love letter to my home today. I am so glad this is where I landed. I’m so glad that I could see the potential in Lucy instead of running in fear. My nice neighbor Dan’s plastic bag window almost kept me from even considering it. But this house had a way of nagging me.
Listen to your intuition.
Go to the place you belong.
Namaste.