My grammar school, Joyce Kilmer Elementary, was in tip-top shape this past weekend. It was so quiet when I walked over there, and the air was almost thick with freshness, as if someone had stuck my hometown in a dryer with a box of fabric softener.

I saw a little girl with platinum blond hair ride her bike halfway around the block, turn on a driveway, ride halfway back around, and then turn again - the bike ride of the bored. What I presumed was her sister sat calmly on their front stoop, engaging two Barbie dolls in quiet conversation. An older couple took their Sunday speedwalk, arms pumping, spandex rippling. Another man washed his car in the driveway, a Rolling Stones CD blaring from a speaker in his garage. It began to skip, and he ignored it. I spotted a motorcycle in the rear of the garage.

And then finally I approached Kilmer, passing the Russell's house - the Russell boys once taunted my brother and I with anti-semitic remarks on the way home from school - and then crossing the street without looking both ways. Why would I look both ways? There was no traffic. There was nothing but perfect quiet.

As I sit and write this I can hear a car alarm combined with the white noise of trucks on Kent Ave, car speed up, brakes squeak, occasionally a motor vehicle hits a pothole and lurches and lands. At Kilmer, there were two boys in the back of the school by the playground, and they were hitting a tennis ball against the wall of the school with sticks, over and over again. I heard one of them say, "Sweet."

I felt sort of creepy taking pictures of the windows, even though I never feel creepy when I take pictures in New York, which I do pretty much on a daily basis. In fact my parents' next-door neighbor stopped me earlier from taking pictures of, ironically, the "Welcome" sign on her lawn. She didn't recognize me - I think she moved there after I had started college - and all she saw was someone standing on the edge of her small lawn with a camera.

"What are you doing?" she yelled.

I peered up at her house. I couldn't see her at first because the sun was so strong, and then there she was, outlined in the mesh of the screen window.

"Are you taking pictures of my house?"

"No," I smiled. "I'm taking pictures of your 'Welcome' sign. I like it."

She shut the window and then walked away from it.

Oh, but the trees were all in bloom, and there were so many of them! They were planted all over the place, with abandon, almost. Everyone can do what they like with their land. They own it, after all. And they have chosen to plant trees and flowers and to keep their grass green and mowed.

View Kilmer Pride photos.

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