I appreciate this story, Jen--it feels a lot like my my own except my mom repelled community outside the church walls. I would have given anything to have a house as a teen that was *the* place to hang out--a place that welcomed everyone.
So I’ve spent my adulthood creating what I wished I’d had.
Pastor’s kid here! 👋🏽 Community was required for my first 14 years and then we left our church for a position the the church administration structure. Losing that community as I turned 14 really rocked my life.
This move out of community that we just did has really shifted my bedrock again. It’s been really effing rough.
Things were different in the seventies when I grew up. A neighborhood had neighbors that really knew one another, and this was before Facebook pages and neighbohood apps. I remember one neighbor one side gave us produce from their garden so we could make cucumber salad...and the other bred Scotties, and the man of the house did low grade leather working like he made belts and such which for a kid with an expanding waistline was good to have around. Up the street we had Fourth of July pool parties and some of the summer nights would show adults outside, smoking cigarettes and talking amongst one another watching us kids on our bikes and bigwheels tooling around the neighborhood.
So many fun memories of that era. None of my neighbors had fenced yards, so all us kids would run wild through everyone's properties as we played Kick the Can and other games.
Yes, I would play till my mom blew the whistle for dinner. We would come home, and after dinner on a summer night, we would play hide-and-go-seek till after dark.
I appreciate this story, Jen--it feels a lot like my my own except my mom repelled community outside the church walls. I would have given anything to have a house as a teen that was *the* place to hang out--a place that welcomed everyone.
So I’ve spent my adulthood creating what I wished I’d had.
Pastor’s kid here! 👋🏽 Community was required for my first 14 years and then we left our church for a position the the church administration structure. Losing that community as I turned 14 really rocked my life.
This move out of community that we just did has really shifted my bedrock again. It’s been really effing rough.
Starting over again is hard and i'm such a baby about it.
It’s the hardest thing I’ve done, maybe ever.
Thanks for thoughts on community.
Things were different in the seventies when I grew up. A neighborhood had neighbors that really knew one another, and this was before Facebook pages and neighbohood apps. I remember one neighbor one side gave us produce from their garden so we could make cucumber salad...and the other bred Scotties, and the man of the house did low grade leather working like he made belts and such which for a kid with an expanding waistline was good to have around. Up the street we had Fourth of July pool parties and some of the summer nights would show adults outside, smoking cigarettes and talking amongst one another watching us kids on our bikes and bigwheels tooling around the neighborhood.
So many fun memories of that era. None of my neighbors had fenced yards, so all us kids would run wild through everyone's properties as we played Kick the Can and other games.
Yes, I would play till my mom blew the whistle for dinner. We would come home, and after dinner on a summer night, we would play hide-and-go-seek till after dark.