When your childhood doesn’t leave you, sometimes it lingers in a backyard, a road, or a very tall tree. The place you grow up in has its strings still attached to you. If you visit, you might remember what it was like all those years ago to stand in that very same spot.
My spot was the neighborhood of Crystal Lakes, South Reno, where trees of all kinds still line the streets and little streams cut through the grass all around.
The homes here are built for single families — kids growing up and going to schools around the area. The streets are lined with signs to drive by slowly. It’s a pristine suburban neighborhood on the surface, and yet, every place has layers that you might miss from one quick glance.
At this time of year, the leaves have fallen and piled on the paved roads, but the trees still keep their reds, yellows, oranges, and greens, like no leaf has fallen at all. The neighborhood was founded about 30 years ago. Now, it consists of 175 homes, each one nestled into the greenery. This is the pull of the neighborhood, to walk out your front door and be surrounded by green. My house, where my mother and stepfather still live, is one story — roses growing by the front porch and vines creeping up its pale blue walls. Right outside, a plum tree towers over the spot I park my car, and the plums fall down and splat on my windshield…