I feel as though I stepped off time. And I can’t tell you I’ve done anything exciting. Thanks for your inquiries and kind words, I still have some time to go before the wee babe is here but trust me I’m counting the days! This might be the most I’ve read in my life as I’m hauling around a big belly on top of a bad hip. Hopefully someday I will laugh at the amount of time I spend perched on the yoga ball with a book in hand. With spring around the corner I find my spirits awakening from their slumber. It has been a long winter and the best part is right around the corner…I’m grateful for that!
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Sometimes in life people have full circle moments and recently I found myself in the midst of one of my very own.
It started last spring while house hunting. Driving through Concord MA (a town I knew little if anything of) we drove right by Orchard House, the home of Louisa May Alcott. It was as if appeared out of nowhere. We abruptly stopped and parked in front and I cried. I don’t know why I became so emotional. Little Women was probably the first classic book I read on my own accord when I was young and like so many other young girls I loved the March sisters and was instantly bonded. I suppose I didn’t know the house was actually real and there it was looking exactly as it should.
Since that day I have been back to Concord many times as it’s where my Doctors are. Aside from the Alcott house I instantly felt at peace in Concord. I told my husband early on “I’m not sure why I just love this town.” I love the streets, the old houses the eclectic little Main St shops. Henry and I go to my appointments and roam around aimlessly. Inevitably we end up at the too-expensive toy shop where I buy him a Lego guy that costs $3.18 (with tax) and he plays with him on the long drive home. We’ve been in Orchard House, it was what I wanted it to be but at the same time it spun me into a frenzy of reading and wanting to know more. I had to hold myself back as I couldn’t stop asking the tour guide questions.
Recently my dad told me Concord is where his mother grew up. I never knew that, I have always wondered about my grandmother. It never felt balanced to be so close to my maternal grandmother yet not know anything about the other. I can’t help but feel it’s no coincidence to fall in love with this town and by pure happenstance to have my baby there.
That’s my full circle moment. Maybe it’s weird or silly and you’re wondering why I don’t know much about my Dad’s family. I’m not sure why I don’t, his parents had him late in life and were gone before I knew them. My Dad is kind of quiet about some stuff, I guess it’s just always the way it’s been. To make it even more interesting Ralph Waldo Emerson lived across the street from the Alcott’s house and that’s my maiden name.
And if you don’t mind me blabbering on, did you know Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau lived just down the street? Can you imagine what that was like? All those transcendentalists with their new ideas and writings? We quote them and refer to their brilliancy when in my mind they were kind of like modern day hippies. They took such risks. Which is great really, it’s too easy to look at history and think glossed over thoughts. They struggled and bumped their way along their paths in life. Just like you and me.
