A portion of Cousin Avery’s new backyard, taken from her playroom

Call the Economists and tell them to put away their calculators: the Recession and all the pain that followed has come to an end.  The war might even end soon.  World Peace is upon us.  I wish these things were true, but last Saturday, they felt true.  My sister, brother-in-law, and niece Avery bought a home and are moving back into the city.  I hear all residents of Indy sighing a collective exhale, tinged with jealousy.  To live INSIDE Indianapolis is to have a wooded acre, maybe more.  Your house could be built anywhere from maybe 1870 to the present day…it’s hard to say.  But you are most certainly close to everything…except a Wal-Mart, which isn’t necessarily a negative.

When we got pregnant, we ran for the suburbs.  It seemed safe.  It seemed smart.  The schools are better.  The closets are bigger.  There are more, I don’t know….what?  Applebees?  At one time my sister and I both lived inside the loop. We had our little bungalows in historic areas, and we sat on our wide porches on Saturday nights, waving at neighbors and deciding on movies and which local eatery sounded tasty.  I was Jenny and Jason’s perpetual 3rd wheel, often crashing in their guest room, known as “Lori’s Room”.  We were very happy.

By the time I moved back from Florida, all tan and married…and very pregnant, Avery was here, and Jenny and Jason had built their dream house in the suburbs.  Like good Americans, Greg and I also moved to the suburbs.  Midwestern suburbs are farmland, so they are the most treeless places on earth.  You cringe and accept it, thinking you’ll use the sunlight to grow a garden, if it’s in your neighborhood covenants.  And the moment we all signed on the dotted line, the Recession hit.  It made us question everything, right down to the usefulness of our finished basements and over-sized garages.  The schools turned out to be just OK.  While my neighbors are amazing, Jenny’s neighborhood was filled with 30-something Prom Queens.  And who eats at Applebees in a city filled with amazing restaurants?  WHO?!

Jenny and Jason decided they’d had enough.  Because he is an architect and Jenny does interior design on the side, their absolutely stunning home sold, even in a market crowded with similar models.  They had the nerve to pack it all up and wait out the winter in an apartment, knowing the spring would bring a host of new in-town listings.  Before the last cold wind blew, they owned a fantastic little ranch on a full acre, covered in amazing trees.  Within moments of ownership, the children next door were inviting Avery to play (in the suburbs there must be a background check, a meeting of the neighborhood, a vote…what have you).  Tucked away off a hidden staircase in their home is a sweet little 2 room, 100% cedar, slanted roof play area for the girls.  Can you IMAGINE the games of “Little House On The Prairie” they’ll play up there?  Within minutes of our first tour, the girls and I were sucking honeysuckle off of bushes in the backyard.  Grandma Kathy and I were trying to catalog the roses and snowball bushes, but we ran out of brain capacity.  The house is full of wood floors and built-ins and tiny nooks and crannies.  It will be a ton of work to make it ship-shape, but that’s exactly what Jenny and Jason do best.  They are diamond in the rough experts.  I fell in love with the house the second my wheels turned into the driveway.  I knew happiness had lived there before, and I know we will make memories there for many years to come.

I gathered up all 3 girls and took them to the movies, a drive that took us all of 3 minutes.  As I pulled into the parking lot, Sara asked incredulously, “We’re there already?”  YEP.  And there is the Target, and there is the mall, and across the street is the grocery store, about 5 minutes away is Avery’s new private school (because unfortunately this gorgeous farmland has not insulated us from the plight happening in the American Public School system), and 1 block south is my favorite Italian restaurant.  Welcome to living in town girls.  It will take us 3 minutes to get back home…because that’s your commute in a life free of highways.  I returned Avery to her parents, who were covered in paint, and as I drove us home, the rain started to fall.  The main thoroughfare connecting the house to the highway is the same road I took between our bungalows many, many years ago.  Familiar store fronts were lit up, almost blinking hello, as if I had never left.  When I came home to Indiana 6 years ago, I came home to a different city: a different job, a different location, a different life.  Even my sister’s life had changed radically.  Indy was no longer home to me…it was so strange and new, as if I’d never been here before.

But last week…I was finally home.  Everything felt familiar.  Everything felt just right, as if nothing had changed.  I can’t remember when I last felt so content.  I found myself thinking about in-town enclaves like Irvington, Broad Ripple, Meridian Hills, Lockerbie, Williams Creek, Butler-Tarkington, Herron-Morton…ah…the romance of moving back into town….Simon & Garfunkel’s “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” came on the radio, and without intent or a conscious awareness that I was doing it, I found myself singing out loud, “50 Ways To Leave Your Suburb….”.