Homeward Bound through our Cultural Beginnings & Customs

[Soft*Silver]

When I found this home, I fell in love with its gardens. It had the feel of how my parents kept their land. Grape pergolas, unfancy but well structured fences made of a patchwork of ancient fence and leftover grills and posts and slabs of metal from various projects over the years. I could tear it down and replace it with a pretty new fence but why? You make do with what you have, is how I was brought up...

inside, nothing has changed since the 1950s and 60s. The wall paper is incredibly "buba" era. The kitchen is so sweet with its tall cupboards and metal sink with metal countertops. The light fixtures are priceless. I couldnt afford to replace them if I tried to buy these antiques. Walking inside that first time, I felt the house claim me. It wanted me as much as I wanted it...

and the neighborhood is so like that of my family and relatives. Old ethnic families from the old country...slavic and polish, italian and irish, now mixed in with POC. They walk their dogs or their children and they stop by as I set on my porch stoop and pleasantly share small talk in a friendly way. My old dog is loved and feared..lol. Children fear her size. Even tho she wags her tail and smiles at them, some just wont budge to go pet her. But many have overcome their fears. Now they look for her when they walk by...

I am so comfortable here in this neighborhood. It feels like home, minus the ponies of course! LOL. I am trying to figure out how to keep a duck or two..maybe a couple hens...

I have young couples, old women, one in a bubushka even in this heat (head covering). They watch me putz in my yard out front. The postal worker smiles and says how pretty my plants are and how quickly they are maturing...

I have lived a few other places where I could not find a single person who looked like me or had a name like mine. I felt foreign. Here I feel at home.

I am glad you created this thread, ALH...made me appreciate what I have all the more today!