my little sister Monique who is one of the loveliest people I know, and also one of the funniest. And one of the most creative. And basically the best dancer a white girl can be. She got all those genes.
I spent most of childhood and embarrassingly long after that not getting along with her. And these days I regret every minute I spent not totally appreciating her, because now when I get together with both my sisters it almost hurts. Both from the laughing and from just loving them both so much.
The 24 hours Monique was here was the best. We stayed up way too late, may have drank too much vino, and then went for a visit to the place where we spent our very early childhood years. I only lived there for about 7 years before my family moved to the city, but I think the time we spent there probably had the biggest influence on my sisters and me from an aesthetic standpoint than all the other areas we've lived in since.
It's a historic village outside of DC that was originally formed as a Methodist revival camp and getaway for city dwellers. The original plots were designed to hold tents. Eventually, people built permanent homes on the plots and then continued to add onto them. The result is fascinating, lots of quirky caravan-esque homes. Today its totally bohemian. And it was like that when I was growing up. Sort of beautiful and quirky and carefree and natural and sometimes overgrown.....
It was a drizzly day when we visited, but even running through the rain was a little magical in a nostalgic kind of way. Whenever we'd come across three cute homes all in a row we'd stop and talk about buying the three of them and living there all together. But Mo is really a city girl at heart. And so is Nicole. And me...I think I'm not. But I do like to visit Mo, so we let her go back to New York....
