Places I Remember

John's most recent post got me thinking about the various parts of Sacramento in which I've lived. I came to Sacramento to attend Sac State, with every intention of returning home to the Bay Area, where I grew up. So, I started out in the city of Sacramento -- on campus and near campus, for years. Marriage, a child and economic realities kept us from returning "home". The years went by and then divorce, remarriage and continued economic realities continued to keep us in the place I now call "home". There were two years in Rosemont, one year in Sierra Oaks Vista, and two years in Arden Manor. Finally, the means and opportunity arose to make our true home in Garden of the Gods. Here we are and here we plan to stay until we're rolled out in body bags.

We chose Garden of the Gods because of the schools. I'd known about the neighborhood for quite some time. It had a reputation as a stable, friendly place. No place is truly stable these days, but this neighborhood is more stable than some. Many homes are owner-occupied, their mortgages long since paid off. We very much enjoy the absence of air traffic noise here! Our only real complaint is something we noticed soon after we moved in. Practically everyone here is white! Having spent my formative years in Berkeley and Oakland and my early Sacramento years in the educational community, I took integration for granted. It had never occurred to me to check the ethnic profile of a neighborhood before buying into it. Nor to my then fairly new husband, having lived largely in the struggling areas of the region, where the common denominator among neighbors is need, which affects every ethnic group.

Prosperity, though, is a good deal pickier about whom it touches. Having been touched with modest but sufficient prosperity, here we are: white middle class people living in a white middle class neighborhood and celebrating any and every indication that Garden of the Gods might be developing more of a rainbow hue. We've been in this house for about seventeen years, and we've seen very little to indicate that we're becoming integrated, and that disappoints us. But people here are kind and caring, and I choose to believe that the economy is what is keeping us monochromatic, rather than any tacit agreement to keep things this way.

Living in Garden of the Gods means living within walking distance of a good variety of stores. It also means living on the outskirts of Arden Arcade -- right on the edge of Carmichael, which we find pleasant. Home is where we raise our children, love our pets, plant our gardens, shed our tears, and celebrate our milestones. "There are places I remember in my life...", the song goes. "...I'll often stop and think about..." previous places, but some twenty years in, Arden Arcade is my home, and I love it.