People and Places

            I get a little melancholy at strange times. I have noticed lately that when I’m at a place where I have spent time with a loved one I associate the place with them. If they are far away from me, being in that place without them makes me sad. When Jeannie was living in Dupont Circle, I used to love to go down into the city and spend a random few hours with her. She is largely responsible for introducing me to the city around that area, and taking the fear out of it. Most of the time that I have lived in the Washington, DC suburbs, I have been the country girl who has to live in the suburbs, because she doesn’t feel comfortable in the city. I have needed my green space, or the feeling that if I needed to, I could escape into the country.

            When Eric and I were first married, I actually worked downtown for the first year and a half. This was in the business district, at about 17^th and M. I could easily make the trek down there via either a Metrobus, or Metro itself, if Eric would give me a lift to the closest station. But my experience of the city was very narrow. Riding the Metro or the bus in to DC was a little like hopping into a rabbit hole in Montgomery County, and then popping up at a preordained location in the city. And I didn’t really go much more than 2 blocks in any direction from 17^th and M. My life was in the suburbs, and the city still scared me.

            But Jeannie’s comfort level with the city broke me in to its charms. If you stayed in Northwest, and were with someone else, even at night, you were probably just as safe in the city as in the burbs.

            So we would poke about the Dupont area, and occasionally diverge to Adams Morgan. But recently, when I went to Dupont Circle for another social engagement, I found myself gripped with sudden sadness. Jeannie had moved to Atlanta (for grad school), and Dupont Circle seemed to have lost its soul. It was definitely not the same without Jeannie.

When I was in Southern Illinois for Labor Day weekend, I drove back and forth between Carbondale and Zeigler a lot. I always chose the route that goes through Desoto, Hurst-Bush, and Royalton. I told Eric that that way was shorter, and quicker, but the real reason I chose that route was that it was the route that my mother, father, and I always drove between Zeigler and Carbondale. Driving on those roads always brings those times back to me. Life was simpler, and my world was different. It didn’t hold the fears that my present complex world holds. The world was a safer place – or perhaps I was unaware of many of its perils.

Driving from Zeigler to Carbondale, or the reverse put me in that world of 30-plus years ago. I could pretend that people who have been long-gone were at the end of the trip. When I drove back to Carbondale, Jose would still be there in her old apartment, and we could have deep, philosophical conversations about religion and politics.

In my daydream, Grandma and Daddy were at the end of the road to Zeigler, in our old house on Wilcox Avenue, and the rest of my family were still there, all together. The house was surrounded by Grandma’s roses, hydrangeas, and irises, and the red-bud and maple trees were still shading the median space between our driveway and the Vaughns’. The sweet gum tree still towered in our back yard. Aunt Katie and Uncle Lloyd awaited our visit on Maple Street, and if it was Sunday, Grandma Smith and Uncle Lyle would have Sunday dinner ready in their house on Ohio Street. If it was evening when we would enter the city limits of Zeigler, we would travel up Wilcox Avenue, and the fountain could be seen sparkling on the circle. Perhaps Mrs. Patton’s ice cream stand was open, and all our friends and neighbors were up there; people we hadn’t seen in years calling us by name and greeting us with a smile. And our night would end with the sound of cool air passing through upstairs windows, and the song of the night bugs whirring and chirping a lullaby so that we could sleep. And the following morning would be bright and full of promise, with life stretching out before us like a golden road.