SUNDAY THOUGHTS: TIME TO GO?

So...I admit I was feeling a bit stalled last week.

 
Before and since Dad passed away, I suppose I've been a bit of a custodian. 

A friend called me "Cinderella". 

I laughed, because it was funny. 

I know what he was implying, but if you know me, you know that cleaning and organizing aren't drudgery to me. I rather like order. 

I was raised by neat people. My parents were grateful people, too. They worked hard for what they had, and took pride in their possessions and surroundings--inside and out. 

 
Every two weeks, just like he always had, our family friend Mark comes to take care of the lawn--as if my Dad is still here. 

Dad liked looking out of the windows at a neat, litter-free lawn.  

In a way he felt he was doing his part to keep up the neighborhood. His corner of it wasn't going to be an eyesore. It represented him and his respect for his neighbors.

Order, pride, and care has been a running theme in my life, I guess. My Auntee Lillian used to say, "If it's supposed to be white, make it white. If it's supposed to shine, make it shine." 

I admit, I ascribe to that. I can think clearly, and relax, and feel safe in an orderly environment. Deliberate disruption that only serves to annoy, inconvenience, hurt, and make work for others has never made sense to me. You knew what your elders meant when they would shake their heads and lament, "Just can't have nothin' nice!" or "Why you wanna tear up where you live?"

 
What's wrong with trouble-free places, where it's clear that people actually care about what's theirs; aren't inconsiderate, selfish, or destructive; are mindful about what they do, and how it impacts others? 

What's wrong with endeavoring to create and maintain tranquility, beauty, and harmony? 

It's not always a matter of economics all of the time, just sheer will. 

A few days ago, I was feeling nostalgic, misty and anxious. I know. The Bible says I'm not supposed to be anxious about anything, but that twirling going on in my gut let me know I needed to collect my rambling thoughts, breathe, and refocus on the search. 
I'll be moving soon, and peace and safety are at the top of my wish/prayer list.

I know the house won't be a hard sell, which means I can't impede my own progress. I always knew this living situation was temporary. 

I've always kept that thought in the back of my mind, but three years of maintaining my parent's home has been bittersweet. 

This place could use a family, though. 

It begs for happy children; people to occupy all of the rooms who will give it life, and make new memories. 

It has been a little unnerving seeing people drive by and slow down, or drive into the driveway, get out and walk around the yard freely as if they were already at home, but that's what a FOR SALE sign in the yard does--it attracts.

I had been moving at a pretty consistent pace once I began organizing my stuff. Suddenly, I felt sluggish. 

It occurred to me that this year marks 40 years since my parents announced we were leaving S.E., Washington, DC and moving to Fort Washington, Maryland. 

I thought they had lost their parental minds. 

I was soon to be a freshman at Howard University when they made the announcement. I had already mapped out my bus route. 

The A8 would take me from MLK Avenue to 10th and Pennsylvania Avenue, then I would walk to 7th Street and transfer to the 70. 

How in the world was I going to get all the way from Fort Washington to school? 

As a child, traveling south on Indian Head Highway to visit family friends who lived on Bryans' Road in Indian Head, Maryland had always seemed like a field trip. The only light was courtesy of a drive-in movie theater.
Forty years later, I was sitting in the kitchen on one of the hard, Link-Taylor chairs, just staring into space, looking around, and thinking, "I'll be leaving here soon." 

I'd moved before. Suddenly, the thought of moving again exhausted me.

Naturally, I thought about Moses and the Children of Israel. 

Forty years is long enough to be anywhere, I suppose, and lately I had been in a wandering state. 

I told myself, "Get excited! It's time to start over; begin again; try something new; get back to life!" But where? 

That was the source of my anxiety. I hadn't considered everything involved with relocating in a long time. Even with the caregiving, I'd pack a few things, leave DC, come to my Dad's, and when he'd recovered, I'd go back home. 

This time, I had to move; change my address, and reoccupy the room I'd chosen when I was 17. 

Once again, in 2015, Dad was ill, couldn't live alone, but adamantly wanted to remain in his house. 

For the last three years, this was home again. Things were very difficult sometimes, but I never felt unsafe.
My daughter advised, "Get out of your head. Go and take a ride if that's what you think you want to do, and look at some places. Use the websites. Narrow down a few places." 

A broker I met recently said,

"You take one day at a time. Sometimes, you become a part of somebody else's caring so much that you completely forget about yourself. You're a person. Follow your instincts. When I just don't know which route to take, I leave it up to God. I say, I don't know. Just tell me. Tell me..."  

They were both reassuring, but I needed something else. Häagen-Dazs, a brand that was born the same year I was, brilliantly created Vanilla Swiss Almond, and a half-pint of it temporarily eased my stomach and mind.

Each day I was pondering where I would settle, scouring Zillow, saving searches, and thinking about what lead up to the move from DC so many years ago. 

There had been a peeping Tom. 

Dad had been fed up with the noise on our corner in SE DC. Loitering increased. The public school system's standards were changing. 

Kids had begun using the stop sign as a target for their basketballs, and the banging and reverberating were unbearable. 

Dear neighbors had moved away, or passed away. 

One neighbor seemed to suffer a mental breakdown that caused her to leave her home and angrily rant and scream at passersby in the street, while another seemed to be turning his entire yard into a poor tribute to Sanford and Son. 

The last straw, was when a contractor who'd just finished doing some work at our house, was shot. 

He had been putting his equipment in his car. Bleeding and crying out, he managed to crawl across the sidewalk, through our gate, and onto the porch. My Dad helped him get into the house. We'd lived there since the mid 60's, but suddenly terror moved into the neighborhood. 

It wasn't safe anymore. 

I understood my parent's concern, and was sad for a while. Change was difficult, and I'd loved city living. I'd loved S.E. 
I'd walked or ridden my bike all over Congress Heights, Bellevue, and Washington Highlands. Our church was in Anacostia. 

The intersection of Upsal Street and Horner Place created perfect bases for kickball games. Everyone knew everyone else. 

We had beautiful red rose bushes in the yard. 

I loved sitting on the back porch with my sketch pads and pencils, and drawing until the sun set. 

I loved our house-- that I never considered little, until I saw the new one. 

It was the year I started college. 

I had no driver's license. 

Who needed one when the A8 bus stop was a block away? That DC transit A bus took you where you could connect to what seemed like everywhere. 

I thought everything was fine, but Mommy and Dad joined the flight to the quiet, safe, formerly off-limits suburbs. 

Seriously, I thought they had lost their minds. Mommy was still somewhat close to work, but Dad often expressed how he hated his commute from SE to the State Department. Did adding miles to the trip make sense? 

Moving meant getting up at the crack of the crack of dawn, so that he could drop me off at 7th Street to catch the 70 bus to school, so I wouldn't be late for my 8:00 class. I remember the day he declared he wasn't taking me anywhere else except the Department of Motor Vehicles. You needed a car in Fort Washington, then. It was the boonies; no-man's land. You couldn't just wander in, and I think the residents liked it that way.

My parents decided to move to no-streetlight-or-public-transportation-having Fort Washington because they'd simply had enough of the city.  
Dad had driven to Fort Washington one Sunday afternoon to serve communion to an ailing church member. He brought Mommy back to look at the "good looking" house he'd seen on a corner lot. It had more than one bathroom, and a big back yard. Mommy could garden, have more room for her French Provincial furniture they'd purchased at Curtis Brothers (famous for the big chair), and she would be neighbors with some of her teacher friends. People could visit without having to worry about their cars being vandalized or stolen. The cookouts would be legendary. There was even a working fireplace and wrought iron that reminded them of New Orleans. There was plenty room for the dog and the doghouse. Dad contemplated a swimming pool, and there was ample room to play a game of pool without your stick hitting the walls. 

My parents were sold. 

The house was nicer and bigger, and I had a huge closet in my bright orange room, but it wasn't S.E. There was no High's Dairy Store, Waxie Maxies; no corner stores like Fort Carroll or Cassandra and Felicia Markets; no Atlantic or Congress Theaters, Washington Highlands Library, or Bob's Frozen Custard. 

I couldn't walk to the post office or dry cleaners. 

I couldn't ride or catch a bus to Eastover to Woodies, G.C. Murphy or J.C. Penney, Holly Farms, or the bowling alley. 

Fort Washington was giving quiet, safe vibes, that is, until someone shot poor Mr. Branch, who'd owned lots of land, in what used to be the first house you'd see after turning off of dark Oxon Hill Road. 

As heinous as the crime was, there was no urgency to pack up and move somewhere else after that happened, just an understanding that bad people bent on doing bad things were everywhere.

It's still been quiet here. There's more traffic than there used to be, but it's quiet (or maybe it's just considerably less noisy than it was in DC), and it has been for a very long time. The older I get, the more I adore peace, comfort and safety. I still can't get over it though. It's been forty years since my parents decided to move, and the irony that presents itself today is that, in the same way that a shooting helped them decide, and a shooting is also motivating me. 
 

On the evening of July 14th, on the street to which my parents fled, with its neatly manicured lawns and hedges, the police were everywhere. After scouring social media to see if anyone was talking about the noise I'd heard, I read that four people had been shot. 

It hadn't been Independence Day revelers using up their surplus explosives after all. Someone was armed with a gun. 
I was suddenly keenly aware of how my parents felt. Things are different when they seem to be knocking at your door. 

I've lived and worked in what have been deemed among the worst, most dangerous areas in DC, so I've always been careful, but never afraid. I certainly never felt uneasy here before.

I'd been watching TV when I heard about 8 extremely loud bangs. They were so close--too close--and they echoed. I could almost feel the sound, but of course it's still July in the DMV, so I flinched, but never thought to rush to a window or pick up my phone to call 911. I'd done that so many times before when I lived in S.E. and S.W. DC, only to hear a nonchalant dispatcher ask, "Ma'am, are you sure they're not fireworks?" 
*Sigh*
"Gunshots or Fireworks" is the unofficial, annual game we play in the DC area. Even though fireworks are illegal in Prince George's County, and fireworks that explode are illegal in DC, quite a few people ignore the ordinances, and fire off round after round with impunity. This year was the first time in a long time that it's been relatively peaceful. However, ten days after the 4th of July, only WUSA 9, the police cruiser parked horizontally in the middle of the street to block traffic, yellow tape, vehicles making sudden u-turns as they neared the scene, and the red and blue lights that flashed from the roofs of numerous cruisers, testified that the noise last night wasn't fireworks. 

A death, and a last will and testament were the determining factors, and now, a shooting has contributed to the urgency for me to find a new home, but again, where? 

I've narrowed down a few places, and I know that there's no place that is completely crime free, but I just hate that it seems this street is going the way of so many others. 

I don't know. Maybe the incident was just random. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe it was simply irony. Maybe it was a reminder not to procrastinate, or be lulled into a nostalgic state. No matter where people flee to get away from trouble, it tends to find its way there, too. It's not the streets, avenues, boulevards, and communities. Brick, wood, mortar, grass, asphalt and trees never hurt anyone. It's the people who occupy or enter the neighborhoods. They have to care.

Sometimes, I wonder if it's systematic and deliberate; if there's some conspiracy afoot when people seem to be frightened out of, or forced to flee neighborhoods. Fear is a motivator, but I don't want it to be mine.

I'll keep looking...and praying for guidance-- and for the four people who were wounded. I hear they're all going to be okay.

It's time to move.