Safe at Home Base

[Elspode]

Well, we've been in the new place for a bit over a month, and I've been accumulating little tidbits that I felt like sharing about life, the new place and everything. I figured that Home Base was about as obvious a spot for it as The Cellar has to offer.

I think the most surprising thing about the move and new home has been how energizing it is, both spiritually and physically. It seems preposterous, but the drive to work seems to actually be interesting and refreshing for some reason, even though I know the route intimately and have so known it for my entire life. In fact, my daily commute now passes within sight of the first home I remember living in when I was about three or four years old. It doesn't get a *lot* more familiar than that, does it?

The route to work takes us down old 50 Highway, now known simply as Blue Parkway (everything in the KC area is named either Blue somethingorother or Trumansomethingorother, after our second largest river and our most famous native son). It travels for much of its distance through town along the banks of Brush Creek. For those of you at all familiar with Kansas City history, most of the attention caused by our second worst and probably most costly flood (circa 1977) was centered on Brush Creek where it runs through KC's historic shopping district, the Country Club Plaza. Indeed, Blue Parkway essentially ends at the edge of The Plaza, at the extreme Northern edge of which my wife works. In the intervening 30 years since the big flood, Brush Creek has been transformed from a large concrete ditch into a Corps of Engineers designed, scenically pleasant string of small lakes, "waterfalls", walkways and greenspace meant to double as prevention against a reoccurance of the disastrous '77 flood.

Since I've made this drive many times over the course of my adult life, I've watched the Brush Creek watershed alter slowly; with it, the aging, almost ancient businesses and neighborhoods along Blue Parkway have seen spurts of renewal and rebuilding. Blue Parkway is now an interesting, if a bit eccentric, assemblage of modern public/private partnerships, freshly painted older homes, and mom and pop businesses - with a few pre-superhighway roadside motels thrown in for good measure. It is a truly interesting drive, especially after 30 years of traversing the infamous "Grandview Triangle" in the course of making a living. Indeed, the usually monotonous morning commute which Mrs Elspode and I make together more often than not has actually turned into a positive sharing experience between us. Nothing Earth-shattering, mind you, but neither is it a blank, hypnotized stare at traffic, either. I may have to alter my mantra of "Change is Evil, Change is Bad" if this keeps up.

As I have mentioned before in the "Good Vibes" thread, the singular thing about our new place is the magnificent yard. There is so much open space that it just sort of calls to you when you are inside; it beckons you to come out and be in it. It is especially at night when I hear its Siren call, because then, it is much harder to see all the weeds and trimming I need to do in the morning. Indeed, beneath last night's full moon the Mrs and I sat, watching the low, sparse cloud deck scurry by, our copiously wooded back fence standing boldly silhouetted against the silver darkness of the sky. On weeknights, there is a low hum of nearby 350 Highway/Blue Parkway, but mostly you hear the tree frogs and the breeze rustling the branches. On Friday nights and Saturday afternoons, there is the roar of the nearby dragstrip, with ground pounding roar after thunderous growl rolling over the intevening neighborhoods and fields in quick, evenly spaced succession.

Some might find that an unwelcome interruption to their solitude...but not me. That strip is the very same to which I used to make pilgrimages in my teens with my asshole stepfather, the one thing he would ever take me to do in his years with my mother. It is the selfsame track where I saw "Dyno" Don Garlits, Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen, Dickie Harrell, Al "The Flying Dutchman" Vanderwoodie, The Little Red Wagon, Art Arfons' Green Monster, and so many other drag racing icons of the late 60's and early 70's. The throaty roars I hear while sitting under the sky in my backyard swing (WalMart, $69.99, some assembly required), while no longer issued forth from the big players of today, jog my memory and remind me of the simpler days of my youth...and just how fucking loud a hot shit car can get.

Much as I enjoy the new place, I don't think any of the family is getting as much out of it as our dog, Bridgid. For her, a whole new world has opened up. She's gone from outdoors being a chore for her, tethered to a dog trolley and used only as a bathroom, to being an environment...one which she prefers to share with another family member. She'll go outside by herself, sure...but she usually stands there looking at you, imploring you to go investigate the place with her. She isn't frightened - she just seems to want to *share*. She seems drawn to be outside in our mini-park in much the same way that I do, just to be immersed, to enjoy the place for what it is.

Perhaps it is because it is the biggest piece of property either of us, Bridgid or I, have ever been able to call our own. Perhaps it is because it is new, and that newness will wear off. Or maybe, just maybe - all of us are meant to be here.