Won't you be my neighbor?
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- June 1, 2018
- 1450
For the second time in three years the property beside us is up for auction. There were lovely renters that moved in the first two years after our neighbors of 19 years auctioned, downsized and moved across the county.
Last summer the owners moved in, and I’ve enjoyed watching them do their thing on the property, making it their own. They’re moving on and have been readying the place for auction once again.
I’ve been mowing and making sure the weeding is done, and yesterday I spread mulch in the rain. I want to show potential buyers that the neighborhood is a good one.
But a community is more than its houses. It’s people. A neighborhood can be two things: its own little universe where everyone knows each other well or small, separate worlds where you keep to yourself.
For a very long time our little enclave on state Route 39 had only longtime residents. Up until several years ago, most of us on our side of the street had inhabited our houses 20 years or more.
We had time to build up our perennial beds, erect fences and watch them erode with time, see exteriors be freshened with new siding, and watch trees grow unwieldy and be cut down.
We saw kids grow and leave home and feel fresh aches as we realize we’ve grown older and are now the neighborhood veterans.
I know my neighbor to the west is outside working when a trail of smoke is seen wafting over my fence. She loves a fire and builds one most times she’s outside. I can depend on her to feed my cats if I ask her, and she knows if something in the neighborhood is askew.
You know your area. Three years ago, two of the longtime neighbors sold and moved away.
Things change.
We are chill neighbors, at least we believe ourselves to be. We’re not overly anxious about yard work, nor do we use fertilizer on our lawn. I believe in dandelions and the delicious creep of an unruly flower bed.
We don’t immediately shovel snow as it falls in winter and enjoy the quiet blanketing and peace as it builds. We like a good playlist of music humming in the background as we laugh well and long on the imperfect cement patio my husband poured and smoothed by hand.
We do keep to ourselves and will never bother you, though our perfectly adorable stray cats might peek through the fence to see what you’re up to. Tina, my inside cat, will judge you through the window as she surveys her kingdom.
My porch is my haven, and reading a book with a glass of wine in hand is what I long for on most summer days. My home is my office, where I curate words for consumption.
What should a neighbor be? How much or little do we give of ourselves? Whether I wave from my porch once a week or talk at the corner of my lawn, I know that very soon we will have new ones. And we will welcome them.