Friday, October 24, 2008

Location-Location-Location

From RevGals... it's the Friday Five!

Tell us about the five favorite places you have lived in your lifetime. What did you like? What kind of place was it?

1. Don't remember much about it, but my parents brought me home to a barn. Always makes a fun intro line when writing one's life story. They, we, lived in half a renovated barn for the first four years of my life--complete with cows that bedded down in the basement.

2. Madison, WI for Grad School. Lake Mendota, the Terrace, the farmer's market, liberal, friendly Midwestern people, university culture, it was a two year GIFT to live there and have had the friends I had then. I learned much, loved much, and grew much. Would move back in a tick.

3. Grand Coteau, LA-- 1200 people, a love affair with food, beauty heaped upon beauty, sweet olive trees that are SURELY a foretaste of heaven's perfume when they bloom, seventeen shades of green I counted one day while sitting on the gallery of the school there--and I never turned my head. Friendly people, kind, generous people..

4. NYC NYC NYC. LOVE the City. People watching, pavement pounding, sensory delight, sometimes sensory offense, the world is walking by...

5. I've lived too in Cambridge, MA, Newton, MA, Chicago, Milwaukee, and four or five cities in OH. BUT, if I were to pick a place I wish I had/will live... several things come to mind. A houseboat on the Mississippi; Bath, England; a treehouse like the Swiss Family Robinson; SanFrancisco; and my ultimate fantasy...a small house in Maine, overlooking the Atlantic--one bedroom, one library/study/living room, and a kitchen large enough for a table to eat on, a wingback to read in, and space to have company while I cooked. Oh, I could describe this house for pages and pages.

3 comments:

Processing Counselor said...

It sounds like you've lived in some interesting places. I often wish I had the chance, but one I got to NY, I kind of got stuck-except for a beach house in Orient, NY. which is very like New England.

LutheranChik said...

My partner spent almost 15 years in Maine...she loved the natural beauty but said that it was very, very insular, even in larger cities like Portland...you could live there for 30 years, and you'd still be considered an outsider. She notes that northern Michigan has much of the natural charm of Maine, without that vibe...I'm guessing Wisconsin is much the same.

Kimberly said...

Processsing counselor,

Yes...I have lived in interesting places--each one home in its own way. When people ask "So, how often do you go home?" My answer is usually, "Hopefully once a day."

Lutheran chik,

I know this about Maine...but I can't seem to shake that romanticized notion that comes from reading so many May Sarton journals and one of my absolute favorites-- The Magnificent Spinster. Yes, Madison is wonderfully charming, by the way. And quite friendly.