Church Street

I was definitely born in the wrong era. I tend to gravitate towards older or historical times, ways, and architecture.

Baking and cooking from scratch is something I enjoy and do it almost every day. There is very little that I make using something from a box or a can. It wasn’t always this way. When I was in my twenties and money was tight, it was rare to have fresh fruits and vegetables. It was cheaper to buy a jar of spaghetti sauce than to make the sauce from scratch. Today it’s appreciated and a labor of love.

From April to November I’m watching the weather forecast daily to see if it’s going to be a good day to hang my wash out, or if it’s going to rain, or if I need to water my gardens with water from my rain barrel.

Nothing is better than getting lost out in the country so I have the opportunity to see new things while driving down new roads. I’m never really ‘lost’ because I have my phone with GPS that will get me home as if I’ve followed the yellow brick road.

There’s nothing better than driving the backroads through little towns, farming communities, and seeing what each Main Street has to offer.

While driving through the country and seeing the occasional thriving farm and some that are abandoned, I wonder if the last person that walked out of the front door of one of those abandoned farmhouses knew that there would never be another person to walk through that door or another family to make that house a home.

I truly feel something in the pit of my stomach when I see an abandoned farm…sometimes with broken windows where the curtains have caught a breeze.

But there’s always another town, and another back road, and another Main Street. In addition to Main Street, I think it was pretty common for small towns to also have an Elm Street or a Maple Avenue…or a Church Street.

I live in the city because I was never fortunate enough to be able to have a home in the country but it doesn’t make me stop dreaming and wishing.

The city I live in completely surrounds a small land-locked, quaint, historical, and loaded-with-painted-ladies village. If you’re unfamiliar with the term painted ladies, they are generally late nineteenth century or early twentieth century Victorian homes. They are called painted ladies because of the multitude of vibrant colors that some are painted. Some are shades of pink or purple while others may be more subdued shades of greens and rusts.

In this small village there is a street called Church Street. It’s less than ten minutes from my house and there is a block-long section that has one painted lady after another, and yes, there is a church on Church Street. It’s a Methodist church built with red bricks and the most beautiful, reaching-for-the-sky white steeple I have ever seen. At the top of the steeple are windows and there is a light that shines through the windows at night. I wish everyone could see what that light looks like from a distance…at night…in the winter…while a light snow is falling. Absolutely breathtaking.

Okay, back to the painted ladies of Church Street.

This particular block ends at a parkway. There’s not a lot of traffic on Church Street. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered another car in either direction in the twenty years that I’ve occasionally driven there.

The homes are works of art. They are beautifully painted and maintained. If you were to walk up and down the sidewalks there, you might think you were transported back in time to another era. I feel at ‘home’ there. I can’t explain it but I can picture what it must have looked like before the roads were paved, before long dresses disappeared, and when children played stick ball in the street.

So if you’re ever able to take a back road, through a small town, and you see Main Street, also look for Church Street and see if it takes you back in time.