How well do you know your neighbourhood?
I can bet that quite well if you grew up there. As children we tend to run around our neighbourhood and discover new places. Each street and each curve further is being the more curiously conquered. Thus, we all have a kind of a map of the world of our childhood in our minds.
However, the answer to the question above would be ‘not really’ if we moved in later and didn’t have a chance or need to wander around curiously. As far as I’m concerned, I know all the streets and all the secluded places of Wygoda, but not many of the village I live in now. Every day I used to go from home to work and back and stayed lazily in otherwise. At least that has been so far. Now, when the best attraction of the day to look forward to is a walk (when my little son is fast asleep and silent in his pram and I can relax and listen to my thoughts), I’ve started learning my new neighbourhood. Not streets, but paths — paths through woods and paths through fields and meadows. Once I have learned one, I try another one. And when I get back home I ask my husband about yet more paths I have come across. He’s got the map of them in his mind as they are a piece of his childhood’s world, and he is utterly happy to share them and his memories with me. And I’m just as happy to learn about his world and the future world of my children.
Basia, the picture you added to your text reminds me of something similar I experienced when I stayed in the US. River Lane was the place I lived at for only a couple of months, so in fact for the residents I was rather a stranger, though I still think of it as my neighbourhood. Every day I went through this area to drive my girls to school leaving these tall trees, bushes, chipmunks and deer behind. Can you imagine that, with a few exceptions of joggers, no one walks there at all? Instead they prefer driving a car. The epiphany came when one day I decided not to get in the GMC truck I was kindly offered to use and take a walk. So I became a stroller for a change and I let myself be absorbed by the surroundings.
As always I haven’t been up to date with developments here for a while. Basia, it’s good to have you back in this little space; thanks for your contemplative post and very evocative picture. If the road to your place is like the one in it, I’ll come on bike to visit you this Saturday.