1140 Olive Avenue

I grew up on a dead end street.  For over 70 years, the red and white house at the end of Olive Avenue was home to my parents and, in the early decades, my three siblings and me.  I am the oldest, and our ages span nine years.  Growing up in the 1950s in rural Nebraska, our basic needs were generously met.  Our mom stayed home to care for us, and our dad worked at the Thayer County Bank.  It was an idyllic childhood in most respects.  

Our parents built the house in 1953 after a tornado wiped out their previous home (and most of the town).  We were the only family that ever lived at 1140 Olive Avenue.  The house is located at the top of a hill and is surrounded by fields to the north and east.  Three other families were part of the “dead end gang.”  It was a tightly knit community and as kids we moved about in a pack from one house to the next.  As my brother recently wrote, “It was a wonderful place to grow up.” 

When I think back on our childhood, freedom was a major theme.  Freedom to roam, to explore, to create, to have a childhood that allowed us to grow into the humans we’ve become.  Our house was part of that freedom, and even more, the land around it.  For me, the house was where many of the available resources were kept.  I had free access to fabric, drawing materials, paint, wood, nails, hammers, saws, cardboard, paper of all kinds, and a sewing machine.  My favorite place to create was at my dad’s workbench in the basement.  Coloring books were not allowed in our home, so everything we drew or created was our own.  

We all had expanded imaginations, in large part because of the time and space we were given to make up our own worlds, especially outside in our yard or the adjacent fields.  One of our most beloved worlds was “the Stream,” a town we created with the neighbor kids by flooding a ditch along a row of trees behind the house.  We had equal opportunities to pretend in the winter time, as snow drifts morphed into caves and tunnels.  We had access to the four elements in varying degrees as we shaped the earth with our hands, flooded our creations with water, lit an occasional fire, and let the wind carry us across the water in a makeshift boat.  The natural world was our classroom from which we drew life long lessons that shaped who we have each become.

The Seed is a direct expression of my childhood at 1140 Olive Avenue.  The freedom we give children to interact with nature, to play with sand and water on a daily basis is linked to my Nebraska home.  The time and materials we give children to be makers and creators are also tied to the way I spent my earliest days. 

Following the deaths of both our parents in the past fourteen months, the sale of our family home was finalized this week.  A new family will move in and make it their home.  It’s a season of huge letting go for us, and it is comforting to know that other children will have access to the place that significantly shaped our childhood.  Knowing that the essence of 1140 Olive Avenue will live on at Awakening Seed also brings me joy.  Generations of children will be influenced by seeds planted years ago at the dead end of a street, cultivated by love.