A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. 
Hello. Welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. I want to get this one right. I’m not so sure I will. This is going to be open, touchy-feely, and really unfiltered mushiness. Today, Little Basement Dwellers.
I’ve heard you can never go home again. To them I say, oh yeah, watch me. 
I am reminded some things are made with the heart and not the hands. Some of the most beautiful things my mind has been able to appreciate have been made with the heart. Families and communities are an example. They are some of the souls’ passion projects. 
I wanted to start at the beginning, but that means I have to wonder if I wasn’t dropped on my head, on the imagination button. Perhaps it got stuck. When I was a very young child, probably between the ages of 5  and 6, I felt I didn’t belong. Oh boo hoo. But it is true. I am a Latina-American woman who grew up in Pittsburgh, Pa. As a child, my Spanish was atrocious, a true testament to my parent’s inability to teach. I kid! However! The whole not feeling from here nor there makes you nice and strong. Things that make you nice and strong potentially make interesting people. There is a subset of that group who have raging imaginations. Playing games with our imagination is great fun as it is a haven and planning area. 
When we were children our job was to play. That is also how we became who we are. The people that happens with have very specific knowledge about you, how you think, your sense of humor, deepest dreams, first shared aches, nightmares and your honest reaction to sharing your toys, among other very honest reactions. My God! They were there for inception of your sense of humor! I can hear their voices in my memories, saying key words, I can hear how we would say our names, the way the wind would carry our voices when playing outdoors. Our squabbles and pleads for 30 more min, ok ok, fifteen more minutes. My friend’s parents’ voices when they meant business or when it was still ok to play a little while longer. My dad’s voice saying, well, you just have to play fast. 
And play fast we did.
When we moved away I felt I left behind a huge part of myself and my security. The other side of some games. The missing elements to the magic only we could make when we played. Putting on shows for our parents, making up dances, playing cars and Atari and Nintendo, riding bikes, having sleepovers, playing house, playing barbies. Playing in the backyard. Playing. Laughing. Fighting. Getting hurt. Making it better. Getting excited over movies, watching them over and over on a loop. Annie. Batman. The New Kids on the Block. Playing Candy Land. The parents ordering pizza. The parents giving us ideas for games. For fun, but also to get us out of their hair. Going down to the basement to play. Basement dwellers. Our parents made their plans and we got the best part. It all starts with a - you wanna play? The last time for me was almost 31 years ago. The games I played after, were different. Teenager and adult games. Some more serious than others. Most with real consequences. 
I used to feel my friends were taken away from me. And with them, the games and worlds we created. This week I learned I was taken away from them too. I hadn’t realized that. They were always special to me. This week I found out we were special. We. I revisited places I used to know. Places I used to live. When I went back to where some of the best memories happened, with the people who held magic in their hands, it all came back to me. I was 10 years old again. Ten plus thirty years. Continue reading

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