old neighborhoods

it's weird thing to live one's life in long-term chunks in various parts of the world, especially in childhood, especially when the cost of a plane ride is too much to allow for visits. each time i was somewhere, past haunts were filed to memory, transformed into myth -- another dimension. i am often never sure if they were, maybe, a dream.


wilmington, de
i left my house, a tiny place in a lower-middle class neighborhood in wilmington, DE in 1980 and revisited only twice, for a few brief moments only each time. here, it looks exactly as i left it, except maybe the A/C is gone, as well as my mother's lush little greenhouse in the backyard. it looks like it's up for sale.

i lived a lot of grief in this place.

montreal, canada
i haven't seen an image of this elementary school since 1971 -- i just looked it up. my memories from this neighborhood are fleeting -- bits of imagery and tiny, defining moments. it was at this corner when i first realized what an impatient person i am. and it was in this kindergarten when i had my first conscious moment as an atheist, as i insisted that there was no santa claus.

i've been spending some time 'walking' around both neighborhoods. they look much smaller than i remember them, but then, i was just a kid.

how funny is it that these places don't change after several decades.

street view in google maps is wonderfully bizarre -- it's such a shame it's not allowed in greece.

©2010 toomanytribbles