A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Appeared in Pioneer Press newspapers

July 22, 2010

I’m a notoriously bad neighbor. 

Well, I hope not actually a bad one.  I don’t think anyone’s ever found it particularly difficult to live near me.  There are no shots fired on my property, no domestic brawls; the property is maintained at least adequately.

            And “notoriously” is probably an overstatement, as well.  It’s not as if word of my breathtakingly un-neighborly actions spread across the countryside.  But, over the years, I’ve made my desire to be left alone fairly clear, both in conversation and in print. 

In truth, I’ve been essentially a non-neighbor.  My desire, outside of work, is to be in my home with my family, sometimes my friends – the people I wish to see, and don’t as much as I’d like.  A former neighbor used to intercept me regularly on the seemingly long walk from the garage to the house – which made our eventual move into a home with a connected garage one of the happiest occasions of my life.

I’m willing – more than willing: happy – to be a good nearby person.  If you’re in need, I’m there to help.  And I hope I’m not actually unfriendly; just not out-goingly friendly.  But I’ve just never been the guy to come to the block party and get to know everyone. 

Now, I’m not saying this is a great way to be. At all. But I’ve accepted that it’s the way I am – though with occasional urges to fight my nature in the name of what strikes me as better policy and behavior.

The last time we moved – the time I swore I’d never move again – I’d actually resolved to do a better job and to be a more engaged neighbor.  But I didn’t quite get around to mentioning it to anyone else.  So, when Lis made the first contact with the family across the street, she laughingly dismissed their suggestion that we get together, on the grounds that I just didn’t do that.  This was not an insurmountable obstacle, of course.  I could have enacted my new policy.  But, while I groused about it a bit, I took the opportunity to hide behind the wall she’d erected on my behalf.

So, it was with no little surprise – or mockery – that my kids saw me heading to the Fourth of July picnic in our new town. 

We’d chosen this locality substantially because it fulfilled my long-held dream of not seeing neighbors (we can, actually – but just barely, with acres between us, and not at all when the trees are in leaf). But there it was, a note from next door, inviting us to come on over, then proceed to the village get-together.

It was a pregnant moment.  I could reverse the long – admittedly bad, but comfortable – habit of many years by making a small effort; or I could lapse back into curmudgeonly hermitage.  And, there, I made a fateful choice:  to try to be a normal, decent person.

And we had a great time.

The neighbors were lovely and welcoming and interesting and cool.  The same went for the other friends from the area they’d invited, who couldn’t have been nicer and easier.

And the town celebration made for one of the best 4ths we’ve ever had.  Old Mill Creek has a wonderful tradition:  the village president generously welcomes the town to his place.  Everyone brings a dish.  There was an excellent jazz combo, good fireworks.

But the thing that made it extraordinary – for me; though otherwise completely normal – was thoroughly enjoying neighborliness with my, you know, neighbors.  We met a good few (not that there are an awful lot to meet; a subject of conversation was the census and speculation as to what it would come up with for the village this time – there being general agreement that the last count of roughly 250 was wildly inflated).

And this was clearly a factor – the sense of real community created by the special circumstances of this unusual little place.  Our “next-door” neighbors noted that they hadn’t seen most of the folks at the party for the last year.  So coming together, in a celebration of       place and community, in an area where it’s easy not to see much of anyone, takes on a kind of meaning I’d been unfamiliar with as a city dweller and suburbanite. It had more the feeling of a large family reunion than of a small civic gathering.

I’d never felt that just happening to live in the same area meant much.  But of course it does.  What could be more fundamentally decent than knowing the people who, by whatever grace, happen to be set down beside you?  I want to say “especially in a place like this” – which would get me off the hook for my history of humbugging elsewhere – but, no.  I always knew better.  I’m just glad to have come to a place that can make it clear enough for even me to see. 

Ironically – and, therefore, inevitably – I moved where I’d never have to see my neighbors, only to learn how to actually be one. Sometimes it’s wonderful to be wrong. And, to my old neighbors: sorry I missed you.