Because even though it’s October and I’m writing about Living Local for 31 days straight, it’s also Friday, and I’m learning to find my place in a local online community of gifted writers who let it all fly free for Five Minute Friday. We’re linking up over at Lisa Jo’s where she makes the ordinary crush of goldfish crackers on the floorboards seem like magic.
The other day I missed my turn into the hospital in downtown Atlanta where my niece was born and found myself winding back into tree lined streets with craftsman houses from the 1930s and 40s whose yards have shrunk but whose hearts have remained the pulse of this city.
Right there barely 300 yards beyond the shrubbery were chain restaurants and bus terminals and a major metropolitan hospital, but back here was just an ordinary neighborhood. Pumpkins on porches, wreaths on doors, cars at the curb. Runners and strollers and jogging mamas and at the end of the street a park protecting the last of the green space from development.
I love where I live. But sometimes that pulse catches me a bit. That idea that I could have an ordinary life in an extraordinary place and expose my children to more museums and cultures and life than I do right now.
But my ordinary heart beats in rhythm right here. Its pulse is mountain majesty and fewer choices. Its culture is quilters and potters and painters and tradesmen.
It’s the life I’m giving my children so that someday they can choose which ordinary is theirs.
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Lindsey P. Brackett 