Oak Park is a dream. When I close my eyes and try to remember when, I realize the colour of the floorboards is gone. I can't find the smell of the bookshop. We moved away from those tree-lined streets 12 years ago and I find myself still wishing we could go back, sit in the park across from Hemingway's old place, my head in your lap and the church bells ringing.
We would ride our bikes on those streets, looking at these old victorian houses, the craftsman porches. You had your favourites and I had mine, and we envisioned this prairie life in the city, where we'd walk our children to school. Sit on the porch swing. Knock down some walls and plant a lilac bush. Open our own bookshop.
There were all these Frank Lloyd Wright places and we could never decide on one. You know, just in case. You liked the one with steep, sharp angles. I like the one with the rounded front door. These were our Sundays, spent in the shadows of someone's masterpiece. Oh, we had so much time.
Read moreI was just thinking last week that I should write a post on my obsession with the You’ve Got Mail apartment.
You know the one: Kathleen Kelly’s shabby chic brownstone walk-up, home to the lone reed and upright piano, walls covered in books and mementos, and open window overlooking a beautiful autumn New York City morning.
I’ve laid awake at night, trying to figure out this apartment’s dimensions (Is it a studio? U-shaped? Does the kitchen lead into the bathroom?), imagining where I would put my mother’s secretary or the wall shelf my husband built me six Christmases ago.
Read moreWe have a moving tradition: we cry, till it's out of sight.
Our first home was in Oak Park. Matt moved in first, bringing hand-me-downs and woodworking projects to the brownstone apartment. I sat in the living room, under the bay windows, reading in a green chair. This was the life (as my sentimental mind remembers it): young love in romantic Chicago, stained glass over the mantle, a white cat and an antique bed ensuring - no matter how bad our fight was - we rolled to the middle, every night.
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