Blogging 4 Books Submission: Woodlawn Avenue

There are some neighborhood streets where I live that, if word got out a minister was moving in, the residents would be pleased, thinking that such a person would surely be an asset to the community. And then there are other streets in other parts of town where, when it became known that a pastor was buying the house on the corner, apprehension would settle in like fog. There goes the neighborhood.

I couldn't have been more clueless about this potential tension the day I walked across the front porch of that little bungalow on Woodlawn Avenue and through the door. At that moment I knew like I know my mother’s face that this was my house. It smelled like my grandparents' home, a blend of old furniture and gas heat, a scent buried in the recesses of my brain for over twenty years, but apparently ready to rise to the surface when recognized. I burst into tears. My realtor immediately called her engineer husband. “I need to you get over here as soon as possible to take a look at the foundation of this house.” There was an anxious edge to her voice. “I’m dealing with God here! I don’t want to sell my pastor something that’s got structural problems!”

I lived in that house from October 25, 1996 until September 12, 2002, four months after I married my husband and moved into his home, only four blocks away. I knew that I loved him when I realized I was willing to move. That house was mine the way my dog is mine, and even how my child is now mine. The imprint of belonging is there, waiting to be recognized and known and lived into. All you have to do is trust your gut and just live, which is exactly why I knew I had to move. That house would never be ours, and even though I grieved over the choice, it was obvious. Our marriage deserved a better start than that.

What I didn’t know back in the fall of 1996 is that Woodlawn Avenue would be a delightfully insane place to live. Once my neighbors realized that I wasn’t “wacko” religious and I believed in nearly all things liberal, we did just fine, for the most part. Today, on this beautiful Saturday afternoon, we had a reunion tea-party. We still call ourselves the “Woodlawn Witches,” even though Sharon technically lives on Flint, Kathleen is in Arizona taking care of her parents, and I’ve been gone for three years. Clare couldn’t make it. There was a peace rally this afternoon, and later a panel discussion about stopping the transportation of nuclear materials through the mountains. Such are the demands of Clare’s life these days. She’s a celebrity now, having gained notoriety for spending eight months at Alderson Federal Penitentiary for an act of defiance. She “crossed the line” at the School of the America’s during a protest rally. Oddly enough, her story gained more publicity once Martha Stewart was sentenced to that very same prison. I’ll never forget the morning I got a 6:00 phone call. “Clare’s on TV!” Irene was way too excited for it to be only 6:00. But sure enough, there was Clare, being interviewed by Charlie Gibson on Good Morning America. She looked all glamorous, giving Martha unsolicited advice about how to cope, encouraging her to get to know the other women at the prison and to listen to the stories they have to tell.

Peggy is a bit of a celebrity, too, known widely for her life-long devotion to folk music and protest movements. Someone told me years ago that she once had an audience with Chairman Mao, and to this day I think about the fact that I have had conversations with someone who had a conversation with Chairman Mao, and it overwhelms me a bit. She and Irene are a couple; they initiated the first gathering of the Woodlawn Witches. The circumstances at the time were far from fun. Mabel, down the street, had been abused regularly by her husband Scott for the first two years I lived there. He knew we could hear them, he knew we called the police, and he didn’t care. Clare, who lived right next door, talked to Mabel the day she left, which was the day after the night he took a belt to both children. That night, Mabel called the police herself, and when they arrived, she showed the officers the strap marks on her children’s backs. They took Scott to jail and Mabel packed her bags and took her kids in the car to her sister’s place in Louisiana. She left Clare with the address, and we all wrote to her asking how we could help. She responded, requesting that we appear with her in court the day of Scott’s trial. The first gathering of the Woodlawn Witches was a strategy session for Mabel’s court date.

Today’s gathering was a sad one, too. Peggy has gotten a job teaching at a university in Boston, and Irene, after a failed attempted at starting a coffee house, is moving back to England because her visa has expired. Kathleen is only around for another week or two, at the most, if her parents can handle her being away that long. She and I stood on her porch as I was leaving, looking across the street to my old house. Two of the ancient maples are gone, cut down by the new owners to the devastation of the rest of the folks on the street. Kathleen lamented inevitable change. I looked at that house, still feeling it call to me, grieving the loss of my single years on my crazy street. One life comes to a screeching halt when a new life begins. I wouldn’t trade the new one for the world, but I am also very aware of what I left behind.

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