Today took me to another late 90’s suburban neighborhood, fairly similar to the Eastwood neighborhood I visited a few days ago.  This area felt, structurally to be very similar–similar construction, similar era, similarly sized houses.  Since I visited Eastwood quite recently, the differences were probably more striking than they would’ve been otherwise.  For one thing, there were none of the creative things we saw in Eastwood (though it should be mentioned that those really awful manhole covers were not present here).  Also note that while many of the houses here back up to the reservoir, these are not exactly waterfront views.  The reservoir is screened from view (at street level, at least) by thick forest behind a chain-link fence.

Most of the stimuli in this neighborhood came from the apartment complex that Brookewind cuts through.  Someone was playing music at the pool, which generally seemed to be a focal point of activity.  The rest of the neighborhood featured kids solemnly enjoying their last few days of vacation.  Back-to-School creates some cognitive dissonance for me because it signals the premature end of summer, and even though it’s still mid-August and very warm, pools will be closed or empty and a lot of this summer noise will be gone.  It feels like we write off the last month of summer.  Today’s walk really hit home this reality…the noise was subdued, it felt hot and empty, as if the spiritual experience of  “summer” had already passed into memory even though the corporeal  experience was still present.

The good: Apartment complex, single family housing and even a nursing home provide a good mix of populations.

The bad: It’s disappointing to not see the reservoir.