The start of a children's story...perhaps?

A little girl should never go looking for adventure in a city littered with smelling sewage, convicted criminals, and scary hiding places. Yet this is just what Sharon Lee Feldman was determined to do. Playing with her dollies in the front yard, she heard her mother warn her, as she did every day, not to venture out beyond the fence. Sharon Lee knew from this cautioning she might not ever be found again, might not ever return home, if she walked out into the unknown world that whirred just beyond the yard’s boundaries.

A good girl, Sharon Lee had been content most of her life to mind her mother, play with her toys, and stay inside her grassy play area. Recently though, her curiosity about the outside world seemed to be growing. What existed in the great city, after all? Was it really as terrifying as everyone said? Her school mate, Lydia Lorraine said there was a green eyed monster with purple horns that lived within the trees of the City square. Thomas Trenton said his brother saw a hooded old man knock a woman over and steal her purse. And Mrs. Callaway, Sharon Lee’s teacher, seemed convinced that there could be nothing as horrifying as the deafening sounds of trains, cars, buses and shuttles beeping violently at each other and the pedestrians walking  hurriedly along the crowded sidewalks.

Sharon Lee had to see for herself. She wanted to see the monster, she longed to hear the noises, and she needed to experience the cattle-like feeling of walking throughout the city among the throngs of busy people. So, she hatched a plan—like a tower of Legos it began to take shape until finally it had grown into a great structure, a thick plot.

On her seventh birthday, Sharon Lee decided to let her best friend in on the secret. Gracie Mae Loubrouck was her very best friend, but a little bit of a scaredy-cat in Sharon Lee’s opinion, still no one knew how to make mud pies, tie knots, or create imaginary places like Gracie Mae and Sharon Lee knew these skills might come in handy on the adventure. Plus, she needed someone’s hand to hold when it came time to cross the big streets of the city.

“It will be the greatest adventure we’ve ever taken, Gracie Mae,” she explained, “much better than that trip to Grandma Oma’s house in the dark forest with your parents. Think of all the people we will meet, all the things we will see!”

“It does sound exciting, but how will we leave without your momma knowing and how ever will we be able to find our way back home?” asked Gracie Mae.

These questions had crossed Sharon Lee’s mind too. And while she had a plan to leave, Sharon Lee had never been outside the gates of her family’s yard without her mother or father; there was no way of knowing how to get back, but without a plan to return to safety, Gracie Mae would never agree to go on such a crazy adventure, so Sharon Lee told the teensiest white lie.

“I can get us home. I have a special map that will lead us straight back to this yard!” Exclaimed Sharon Lee, a little too overenthusiastically.

“Really? You do? asked Gracie Mae, wide eyed, “How come I’ve never seen it before?”

“Sure I do, I’ve just never shown you because it’s really special. Besides, we’ve never needed it before now, have we? We’ve never had to find our way back home; we’re always here.”

Just a little more convincing and Sharon Lee had soon sold Gracie Mae on the idea. The two planned their great escape for two days later, just before the school bell rang.

Continuing On...

“Good morning Colonel, I see you’re wide awake today. How about some breakfast?”

He sniffs at me and wags his tail playfully. Clearly, he’s finished with his previous task and ready, like all men, for some sustenance after his gratifying workout. I take his exuberance as an unmistakable yes, snapping the red sequenced leash to his equally gaudy, matching collar. We walk in the other’s quiet company, each listening to the sounds of the world’s waking, its stretching and groaning in the morning light.

Fall has officially arrived. The autumn solstice was weeks ago, but today that unmistakable crisp, crackly feeling hangs in the air, the leaves are just turning, not quite their brightest shades of crimson and copper yet, and the brilliant blue sky categorically defies the ice being pushed into my pores with each new gust of wind. I pull the neck zipper on my sweatshirt upward and try to soak in a few moments of that fresh, tingly feeling before I totally cave to the miserable cold and quickly start-in, to a near canter, toward Joes.

Sheer determination carried me to Adamstown; little did I know I’d be freezing ten months out of twelve. Grandpa always said I scarcely have two degrees tolerance when it comes to temperature—he was right, of course—76-78*F, that’s my kind of weather. I’m an inside-looking-out kind of gal; I’ve never been a fan of actually standing in the brutal force of cold, hard rains, or the natural weight of heavy hail or even light snow. I much prefer the idea of weather and to look at the beauty of the rage from within the warm, safe place of a blanketed window seat, stacks of books on either side of my cider cup and chowder bowl.

“Raeleigh, my dear,” Grandpa would say on a night I used to think classified as cold, but really barely crossed the border into mild, “You will most certainly fall over dead from shock, you ever step foot outside California.”

I wish he could see me now. Sure, he’d laugh harder than the time I pissed myself climbing up the chest of drawers to reach Monopoly, but he’d be proud too; proud that I hadn’t given-up—the same stubborn pride that had me standing, five-years-old, in sopping pink Oshkosh overalls and a Cheshire Cat smile, looking between him and the spilled, wet paper money, exclaiming loudly, "Alright Grandpa, I'm ready. Let's play," still has me defying logic and reason as a twenty-four year-old. I’m going after what I want, even if it means pissing myself along the way—which, Lord, I hope it doesn’t.

Crazy Beginnings...

I awake every morning to the sound of a dog humping the lamppost outside my bedroom window. It is not an all-together unpleasant sound, but is usually jarring once the dreamy haze lifts and I realize that instead of the reassuring rhythmic thump of a favorite song, I am actually listening to, enjoying even, the sound of a masturbating poodle. I don’t fault the poor pooch, of course. Any male covered in mounds of carefully groomed white curls can’t be blamed for getting some the only place he can; after all, what sensible bitch would give herself over to such a mockery.

The window that looks out over the lamppost, over the dog, is attached to my studio, which exists on the fine edge of a paradoxical anomaly of a town; a place that pulls tourists in with its antique stores and teashops while also trapping its residents with that same routine perfection, its scheduled cheerfulness. Half of my monthly income goes toward the rent of a 500 square foot bungalow attached to the property of an old house whose inhabitants, Mr. and Mrs. Greer, find the necessity to decorate with too many of those fake flower arrangements and an absurd amount of potpourri. The perfectly manicured lawn of their Adamstown, Pennsylvania French-Country style home matches identical cottages on the tree-lined lane, Jefferson Boulevard, and millions of others on every other street that bears a previous U.S. President’s name within a 9-mile radius.

The poodle is Mrs. Greer’s prized possession; a standard sized stud, groomed in his continental clip with parts of the legs, tail and face hairless (and I’m sure freezing) for his Hatboro Dog Club Show coming up in late October. The Greer’s never had children and in his need to pass along a little history and tradition to any namesake provided, Mr. Greer named the stud Colonel Bartholomew Greer III, to the horror of his wife, who wanted to name the dog Cottonbon—the  “cotton,” an obvious choice because of the dogs fluffy mane and the “bon” meaning “good” and a tribute to the only French phrase she knows, “bon apetit.”

Awake and cold, I pull on my favorite over-sized, burnt orange sweatshirt—the one that accents my brass colored hair and eyes--and black Ugg slippers, grab my keys, and head out to meet the mutt. Mrs. Greer lets me take him to Joe’s on Saturdays when her pinochle crowd comes over with their varying casseroles and vegetable dips. Joe’s has the best coffee in town, strong, with just a hint of hazelnut.