One of the last times my sister and I walked through our old neighborhood, a subdivision with large lots around a lake in northern Illinois, she remarked that there were “ghosts” everywhere. I knew exactly what she meant. Almost every house we walked past brought to mind a name, a face, a memory.

I spent my entire childhood here. When we first moved in, ours was one of the first homes built, and over the years every lot was sold and built upon. Waking up in the morning to the sound of chainsaws meant oak trees were being cleared. We’d fly out of bed to see which of our beloved “forts” would have to be moved because another lot was no longer ours. My disappointment and sorrow was relieved only by the idea of several months of construction sites to play on, and then when the moving van arrived – did they have any kids my age?

So as I walk around the lake, which I always do when I’m here, so many of the homes remind me of people who are either no longer alive or have long gone onto different lives, as have I. Of course starting with the street I grew up on, the memories are many and clear. I have played or babysat or both in almost every house that surrounds my childhood home. That was the house where my best friend lived. That was Mrs. Martin’s house, the lady who would supply us with garden shears and a basket so we could pick flowers for our mothers from her magnificent garden. She was not a mother herself but she obviously had compassion for women who were!

That was the house of the lady with the blacktop horseshoe driveway who was a bit of a recluse but didn’t mind if we rode our bikes on her driveway and if we would would occasionally ring her doorbell “to say hi,” she always was dressed in beatnik black and had a cigarette in her hand and was always nice and would give us candy – and yes, we’d go away! That’s where my brother’s best friend lived, and one time their mutual friend took us to his nearby farm to see the baby lambs – I can still envision the farm boy diving to catch a tiny lamb who didn’t want to be caught so I could pet it. Delightful for such a little girl! Donnie D’s house, he gave me the BIG Valentine in the box when I was in kindergarten. Susie L’s house which had a fire one day – an early memory of Mom driving us past to see what a fire does was chilling and got the point across about playing with fire, at least in actuality if not figuratively.

Walking along down the road the memories become more sparse and I am a bit older – that was the house of the boy I liked, that was the house where my good friend Kathy lived, that was the house where the ‘new girl’ moved in the summer after my freshman year in high school. She had left her true love back on the East coast. He was a drummer and so we listened to Inagaddadavida with the drum solo that you didn’t hear on AM radio – yes, the entire song, which had been recorded on one whole side of an LP – over and over and over and then over again. Da dant da da dant DANT. Her poor mother.

I didn’t walk down the peninsula, but there are ghosts there, too, the kid who was a bit of a trouble maker, the Girl Scout leader’s house where I made a Christmas cross made out of macaroni glued on wood and spray painted gold. Then past the peninsula to the house of my parents’ best friends where we’d barbecue – they had lakefront property with a huge lawn down to the lake. Later in my twenties my mother’s friend was my sounding board when my own mom was in Florida for the winter, I’d sit at her kitchen table in that house and she’d give me advice about life in general, always with something fresh baked and delicious.

I walk on and the teenage years, when I was allowed the freedom to roam, waft into my memory. There’s a boyfriend’s house. That’s when I hung out with the kids from the other side of the lake – even though we went to the same school and lake beach, we may as well have lived on other planets. Then in the teenage years hanging out at the beach was the only place to be, and we all became true friends. I notice the pier at the beach- I remember it as so high above the water when I was learning to swim – it’s really practically at water level! The rafts are still there, even a diving board which is amazing in this day and age when lawsuits rule our lives.

There’s a different boyfriend’s house – were any of them safe from my feminine wiles? He and his best buddy spent a whole summer stealing road signs at night and generally making me laugh a lot during the day. They had to stop when the cops started bringing out a dog. One day the cops stopped at the beach and Rick, who always wore kind of a fishing hat, realized his hat may have identified him and he threw it in the water…it floated. They didnt get caught but the heat was on. The sign stealing stopped.

I am usually alone when I walk these streets. It is mid morning and people are all wherever they are supposed to be. The houses don’t contain the new people, they contain the ghosts of the people who shaped my early life.

People have often said I too easily live in the past. And yet, I believe it is more foolish to live in the future. To dream is okay, and to live in the now is supposedly ideal. Today walking around I got all philosophical and decided that if time is an illusion, a measurement designed by humans to help us mark our days, then really my past IS now. Walking these streets, sensing these ghosts, cherishing each fond memory, is still the now of my life, and I never tire of running into the old friends and sweet memories of my youth here in this place.