I spent one of my fifty-one years in a meager apartment on Strawberry Lane, in a rundown business district of a fading neighborhood. The bathtub didn't hold water and my bedroom window was at ground level, separated from the parking lot by a narrow sidewalk.
Headlights, slamming doors, screeching engines, and squealing tires guaranteed interrupted sleep, night or day. Metal closet doors popped off track daily and the olive, apartment-sized stove clashed with the copper refrigerator that required weekly defrosting. The single, unadvertised amenity was a slow draining kitchen sink that provided a frequent excuse to dine out.
I moved on to nicer apartments with matching appliances, walk-in closets, and adequate plumbing, and eventually bought my own homes in residential neighborhoods. Still, at the lowest points in my life, I was homesick for Strawberry Lane. Decades later, I finally understand why.
Home is where the heart is. I had sown the seeds of my hybrid heart on Strawberry Lane, when I settled as comfortably into my role as wife and mother as I had been in my role as daughter, and realized I didn't have to give one up to have the other. I reveled in the one opportunity I had in life to have my cake and eat it too - freedom and independence yet with the security of a husband and extended family to pick me up if I fell. My world was safe, my opportunities endless, and life couldn't have been better.
It wasn't the building or neighborhood I longed for when I was homesick for the apartment on Strawberry Lane. I missed the promise life offered while I lived there.
Today, I feel the same homesickness for my country. I long to return to an America that protects me and offers endless opportunity instead of glitzy amenities. I miss the Strawberry Lane America that feeds the hungry, houses the poor, medicates the sick, and hugs the lonely.
I want an America where there's a party in the courtyard at night to make up for the headlights in the bedroom window. I want to have my cake and eat it too, not sacrifice freedom for a façade of security.
When I moved to Strawberry Lane, my father didn't sell my security blanket to buy himself a new golf club. I wish America still loved me the same.
Daddy died of cancer in 1989. The apartment complex on Strawberry Lane burned down in 1992. A bush stole America in 2000.
Maybe it isn't too late to recover the last one.
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Comments: 24
i wish things were different. we're sort of making our own gated communities, against the needs of society. scary. thank you!
I too, miss the America that was less about consumerism and more about decency and honor.
Strawberry Lane Forever. (From bush to Beatles.)
and realized I didn't have to give one up to have the other. I reveled in the one opportunity I had in life to have my cake and eat it too - freedom and independence yet with the security of a husband and extended family to pick me up if I fell
That is a transition I never made, ithink, perhaps it was because I didn't have my family near me to pick me up when I needed it.
Nice essay.