I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and I guess it would be considered a suburban neighborhood. A lot of the houses I notice look a lot like the ones in Zen Ties or Zen Shorts. My mother and father were both going for their careers as teachers so they were not there a lot. I was effectively raised by my great grandmother, who was 72 at the time.
She would walk me to school because before I woke up, my parents would be gone and I’d only have like an hour with them at night before I fell asleep. She’d walk me to school, which was like a mile and then she’d come to pick me up, you know, a mile again, then at lunch time. If we went grocery shopping we’d walk another three miles. Here was this 72-year-old lady who was very important in my life.
I remember growing up and I remember growing up in this neighborhood where we had a cherry tree in the backyard and I can remember riding my tricycle — if I could ride it fast enough, I can remember floating up around the top of the cherry tree — if I could just go fast enough. I also remember one time a leaf following me home from school. That was the first day my grandmother couldn’t come to pick me up was the day that leaf followed me home.
