The thing that I appreciate the most about my neighborhood was that it was built in the 50’s. It’s not so much that I wish myself out of this time period and into that one– my feelings actually have pretty little to do with nostalgia. I just like that the houses don’t have the same, strategic, cookie-cutter look that all the newer housing units do. The houses have backyards big enough for the dog I wish I had to run around. The front yards exist(!) and have space for basketball hoops and soccer games. There’s nothing that helped me more than a walk around my little slice of the suburbs. New families making their first memories in the park where I had long ago made mine, yellow lights that hold sounds of dinner and love trickling through the cracks of doors, a dog whose bark once scared me making his way to the fence. My home and the homes around me were the backdrop to my thoughts and reflections, old musings and new ideas. It’s a place that’s my own, a neighborhood curled into a maze of which I know every turn.