The Sherman Hill neighborhood (and my home for the past five years) just got some new kids on the block. Houses that is. In the almost five years since I moved into my current residence in this historic neighborhood overlooking downtown, the houses surrounding my brick and mortar have been anything but stagnant. Last week three new old houses rolled down the block.
Though I am not originally from the Sherman Hill neighborhood, let alone Des Moines, IA, these five square blocks with their ornately decorated antebellum-era houses has come to mean many things to me. Most importantly of which is home. Between the organic grocery store where I splurge on specialty cheeses and chocolates, the yoga studio where I teach and practice daily, and of course Smokey Row Coffeehouse where I sit writing this now, I have set down roots.
Just like the historic homes that rolled from Dogtown to their new foundations in Sherman Hill, I too have found a space for myself in this community. It’s the garden plot outside my bedroom window where the narcissus I planted four years ago continues to push it’s way through the ground every spring. It’s the pavement I’ve pounded by foot and by bike in fairer weather. It’s the IKEA coffee table where I painted my way through the alphabet to illustrate my first children’s book.
“Just like the historic homes that rolled from Dogtown to their new foundations in Sherman Hill, I too have found a space for myself in this community.”
I may be well planted here in Sherman Hill, but below the surface though, my roots are expanding. With the impending second phase of construction at Mainframe Studios, I look forward to a permanent space within this collaborative arts community. I still paint and draw in my own apartment on a daily basis. But since I moved into my current space as the Drake University Artist in Residence at Mainframe, I’ve honed my creative habits and watched my artistic style develop before my very eyes. This spring I am finally ready to submit my first dummy book to potential editors and agents and am hard at work on a second.
I may have lived in the same apartment in the same neighborhood, in the same city since graduating college, but when I look back at the past five years, it’s clear to me that I’ve been anything but stagnant.
