No one has lived in the suburbs for years.

My father always passed down the stories his father told him. His father always promised that one day, he bring my dad back down there, he’d show him his old home and where he and his friends would play. A celebration of American life, he would tell me, a glorified vision of what it meant to be American. White fence, two story home, green lawn.

I couldn’t imagine the beauty, I didn’t understand the concept. All I have known is the condo given to us on the freighter. Maybe I had a few plants growing under lamps, but a full room of plants right out the door? It seemed so strange, so magnificent.

And as I stand before the American dream, I see why he felt that way.

The houses are bursting with life, trees and vines expelling from every window. Grass seems to cover the sides of all the walls. The lawns flow into the green streets, like waves on an isolated beach. The holes in the walls seem open to all, inviting, kind.

I wonder where our civilization went wrong.