My neighborhood became our own domain // Oh how I'd run when she called my name

Happy Easter/Passover holiday to you all. I hope yours was/is all that you hope for. Mine was very nice. The first one in a while where I reached for the jellybeans rather than the Walgreens punch clock (damn the "business of convenience"). Such as it seems to be with many of our outdoor holidays here in the great lake state, the mood would have to make up for the absence of the sunshine for the most part. But we did thankfully, and wouldn't you know it was the first holiday gathering in sometime that did not include the traditional argument between my mother and x family member. Good show.

A great feast was had; the rolls were soft and the potatoes delicately salted. The place that has celebrated many a holiday gathering now, my Grandmother's house, is actually what used to be our house for pretty much exactly the first half of my life. That is always a nice bonus in any holiday gathering, that extra feeling of familiarity, to see the scrap of wood with my 10 year old 'my hideout' etched in black crayon in my old bedroom closet.

After the feast, the family did something for the first time in years, not since the passing of my little cousin: the Easter egg hunt in the backyard. It really felt like 'the next generation' was there in front of us for the first time. It felt way greater than any of those 'wow we are old' moments you might have with your friends after hearing something about High School or whatever. Seeing them scamper about on the prowl for hidden treats really sent me back to our Grandma's house before she moved away, to the huge, almost baseball-field sized (in the heart of a child) backyard where the dozens of eggs hid under the beat up red car and in the hollowed log and below the rusty wire fence. I took photographs and dreamed: