Country Road Take Me Home

THESE ARE ALL PICTURES I TOOK

People often say that 'home is where the heart is'. But people also say that we're 'a product of our environment'. I believe both of these things equally. Some people are born or live in poverty, where a cardboard box serves as the dinning table, but love keeps the family together. Some live in apartments the size of shoe boxes, and others live in nice suburban condos and town homes. Throughout my life I've lived through many different forms of homes. But my first home, the home that shaped me, formed, and made me who I am today is Modjeska Canyon.

    It isn't a very well known place, even to people who live all of four miles away from it. It is tucked at the very foothills of a mountain range, and as a child it was considered so far out of the way that we had our own general store in case some one ran out of basic goods and couldn't get back into town (which due to only having one road, took about half an hour to get to the nearest city). But progress happens and now there is easy access to it through off shoot roads that lead directly to it--and cities have been slowly building around it as well. But Modjeska is still a magical place that gets bypassed since the neighborhood itself is so deep and well hidden by winding roads and Live Oak trees. But for those who do know it, its the most enchanting place in California.



    Modjeska has good and bad memories for me, ranging from catching tadpoles in the creek that snaked next to my house in the summer, to staying up till 3 in the morning at the local Biker joint while my dad sobered up from drinking and playing pool before sticking me on his Harley and driving me back home down the winding road perched on the side of mountain. But most of all, Modjeska holds for me the example--and even the bar--of what a good community is, and what living with and working with nature REALLY means.

Most people who lived there during the 80's were artists, musicians, hippies, free spirits, and occasionally an actual job holder. I recall more often than not, that I could go to anyone's house or yard and play with their animals. People (even now) raise a lot of animals, grow their own food, and add their own artistic flair to the homes, which are all individually made and preserved. But more than the homes, gardens, and animals, were the people themselves.




    Often times every one knew who I was--even if I didn't know them. They watched me even if I didn't know it, and my next door neighbor always let me and my sister enter her house freely and insisted that we sit in her chairs and eat cookie dough saved just for us before letting us go to her backyard to pick her blackberries. The neighbors that lived a few houses down were musicians, and on hot, lazy, summer evenings the whole canyon echoed (thanks to the mountains and trees) with their banjo, spoons, and guitars--along with any other musician who would amble by to join in. BBQ's were frequent and so were people who simply stopped their cars in the middle of the tiny main road to talk to neighbors. There was never anger over this, in fact I recall a time when that happened to my dad and the people who were both trying to come AND go, got out of their cars to join in the conversation and catch up! In the fall and winter the community got together to scare the children for Halloween, and had Santa stop by to deliver presents to every boy and girl at the Christmas party held in the Fire Station.

   My dad, while not always diligent in watching me, taught me many valuable things--some of them by simply not being around. It took me a very long time to realize the reason he never played with me during the day was because he was drinking, but I was very young, and busy playing in nature. I frolicked through the streets and trees completely safe, took care of my babysitter's horse (who sadly died when the river rose during a rain storm and dragged her horse and several others into the raging waters), and played with my dogs who were always on my heels. He taught me to respect nature,  that all plants had their own voices, that animals who hurt us did it not because they hated us, but because we frightened them. To be gentle to the earth around us, and through stories, to believe that animals could talk.

    Most of my summers were spent up in the hills unsupervised with the other children, where we did daring things like walking on a narrow wall behind the fire station, climb the ancient oaks that protected us from the  glaring California sun, and roam wild in the hills and mountains that  were probably more dangerous than we gave it credit for. Kids growing up in the area learned this first: "If you hear a rattle, stop and walk backwards slowly heel to toe". The other was to always have a dog at your side. You couldn't find a kid who DIDN'T have one. I had three, but two of them in particular were my shadows. They protected me, slept with me in the dirt, and taught me how to recognize if a sound meant danger or a rabbit. And more than that, they taught me that animals had personalities and thoughts and feelings just like any one else, they just communicated it through nonverbal behavior. It was this, I think, that made it so easy for me when I was older to recognize what people were really feeling.
 
These memories and more are what shape my opinions today. That community is when neighbors contribute to each other, share, laugh, grow, and support. That we do not have to destroy nature and try and rebuild it into what we think is 'perfect', nor are cookie cutter homes and manicured lawns the 'ideal'. That letting  children explore the world and nature around them without gluing them to you is vital to their growth, and that when you are alone, sad, happy, or over come with emotions, the babbling brook, bending ancient tree, and gravel road remind you that you have a friend in both nature and the person next door.

MY VERY FIRST HOME

    I leave for a new state, a new life, and new people in four weeks. There is a lot that I am not sorry to be leaving, but Modjeska tugs at my heart very much. Being so far away from the home of my heart is more painful that saying goodbye to my friends and family, who can uproot themselves and visit me. An entire forest and mountain can't. But I take with me my memories, pictures, and myths and legends of the land I spent eight happy years in.

    I learned many life lessons in the multitude of different homes I moved to, but Modjeska taught me the most important ones. Respect nature, listen to the plants and animals, take care of your neighbors, and always ALWAYS remember that to the 400 year old trees and 40,000 year old mountains, you are still a child of the earth that should frolic through their trees and fields.

             Thank you Modjeska, for giving me a childhood that was filled with magic, music, and love.