Strangely Familiar

How often I look around

Or stop and let it sink in

My place here is assured

Even as the shelves in my room sit empty.

Just floating from one project to the next, but never the project of my own space.

I often find that I was lost before

So often looking around in confusion.

The familiarity of this house where I have only spent a month is strange.

When I find that my memory blanks

Having no recollection of where I am

Even as I view all of our belongings scattered about

Reality is stark, but it does not claw the way it used to

Especially when I hear the sounds coming from all around

The acoustics in this building are amazing.

Taking in the crisp feel of the night air

How the wind blows unfettered

Each moment so very different from the city

Where I grew up and a 7-11 was just a ten-minute walk away.

How quickly I have fallen in love with the land

Each morning painting a picture across the valley

And it is a valley, though smaller than the old

Real in all its emptiness

Though life is there to behold.

This cold desert is not bereft of life; it teems with it, overflows.

I look around and realize that I can never be lost here

So with a small smile, I step out into the light of day.

For the first time in forever, the sun doesn’t burn.

Hope

She glanced over the property as she walked the grounds. They would need a lot of work (a lot, a lot of work), but the potential was there.

“Mom!”

She smiled as she looked up and caught sight of her youngest. Matthew was standing at the foot of a large tree with fantastic branches reaching up, up, up above his head.

“We could totally build the coolest tree-house ever!” he called as he tried to pull himself up the trunk.

“Don’t climb too high!”

“I’ll be fine, Mom!”

She glanced over towards the old, dilapidated house once more. It looked more sad than she had ever seen a house look in this day and age, but with her boys and with her family, she was certain that it would be made beautiful again.

This house was more than just a forgotten building, it was hope for the future.

image from: http://magicinthebackyard.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/fwf2.jpg?w=610

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Written for this FreeWriteFriday prompt from a few weeks ago: http://kellieelmore.com/2014/03/07/fwf-free-write-friday-image-prompt-16/

I’m sorry it’s late, but I had to write for it.

The Strangest of Places

Never really knowing anyone’s name for long;

Everyone moves eventually

In this little bunch of circles off a street.

Gone faster than you can even learn some of their names.

Happy here in a way we haven’t been…ever.

But knowing that here is just like many other places

Or maybe we’ll luck out and find another home

Right where we least expected it.

Half of the adults rarely meet, yet all the children are kept in sight.

Oh, how does such a place where no one knows who you are

Or where you come from still be as safe as can be?

Dynamics of a place where every child is precious, even when they aren’t your own.

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Written for today’s Daily Post prompt and because this is kind of what my little neighborhood is like. Only people that don’t live here drive the full 25 mph; everyone else drives at something like 10 mph because small children and dogs sometimes chase balls and other toys out into the street. Most of the dogs have some kind of pit bull in them, but every single dog that gets out (again, most of them) are probably some of the sweetest dogs I have ever met (and once I had a Golden Retriever puppy who thought that my siblings were her puppies.)

This is probably one of the friendliest neighborhoods I have ever lived in and also the only one where I never know the names of the adults, but know the names of most of the children.

Prompt: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/daily-prompt-neighbors/