Full disclosure. I love the novels of Anne Quindlen. I haven’t read all of them yet, but I love how real her characters are. You could easily meet them on the street. Her settings are the central aspect that the novel’s plot revolves.
Parts of the epilogue of her novel, Miller’s Valley (2016), resonated with me. The main character is reflecting on how her husband, Donald, was sure she was the same little girl he left years ago. She muses, “Maybe everyone stays the same inside, even when their life looks nothing like what they once had, or even imagined” (250).
Later, she narrates, “But no one ever leaves the town where they grew up, not really even if they go” (256)
I grew up in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, then a village now a suburb of Cleveland. My dad and his family built our house on Big Creek Parkway when I was three. What used to be acreage of a farm became our yard. There was a pond on the lot next to us (Coe Pond) where snapping turtles lived. My sister and I were not allowed to explore the pond because of the depth of the water and those turtles. But it was perfect for my imagination. There was an old tree that was elevated by the pond’s hilly banks. It towered over us. At night, from our bedroom window, the moon would shine through its branches. One time chasing our dog, I ran up the path to the pond. Tipper stopped by the trunk of the tree to sniff. The trunk looked to have a diameter of more than a yard.
Summers were full of adventures. On one vacant lot, we collected blackberries. The bushes were taller than all of us. I don’t know who cut the path for us, but we spent days gathering berries filling bowl after bowl. Our divided parkway had a creek going down the center. Along our side of the road was a bridal path. Neighboring farmers would ride their horses periodically down these paths. Along the banks of the creek, we would pick elderberries that Mom would turn into jelly, making her hands purple for weeks. The mobile library would park at the corner of our street once a month. I would take as many books as I could carry home and sit under the weeping willow tree for hours reading with my cocker spaniel at my side. I don’t remember being lonely, even though there were not many kids my age close. I would walk my dog down what we called the gas line and be gone from our house all afternoon. I loved the open meadows and trees.
Now how does this all relate to Quindlen’s book? I didn’t think about some of the things I have done or needed until I read Miller’s Valley. I lived in the city of Cleveland for a few years and needed to go to Holden Arboretum periodically or the Cleveland Botanical Gardens regularly. I joined efforts to reclaim several gardens within the city limits.
When I moved to Columbus, Ohio, I had to have a house with a yard. Before we moved furniture, I moved plants. Within the confines of our small yard, every year I nurture three gardens. I love to take long walks along the trails of the parks in our area. My muse for writing is still the outside. If I can’t write outside, I need to be by a window. We have a weeping apple tree, and I love to read under it in hot weather. Even SunShine, my golden doodle, has the same coloring as my cocker spaniel Angel.
After 32 years, I still consider Cleveland and Middleburg Heights to be my hometowns, even though both have changed immensely. I don’t go back to see my childhood home, where I spent 21 years. I don’t go back to Cleveland /Middleburg Heights that often. But now I realize how deep they are within me.
