Being Neighborly
Everything blooms in spring … including neighbors, it seems. People we’ve lived near all winter have suddenly started appearing everywhere – walking dogs and kids, swimming at the newly opened pool, chatting in the intersections. The sun came out and so did all the people, emerging from the cold ground and warm houses like so many happy tulips. We don’t have North East serious winters here, but we have enough cold and inhospitable days that the arrival of warm breezes really feels like a new beginning. I never understood how the change of seasons could make that much difference in how people lived and interacted, but now, suddenly, I do – realization, again, that California really is a one-season state. The sense of blooming here now that it is warm is amazing.
I found myself playing Easter Bunny this year, organizing the neighborhood egg hunt for close to 30 small people armed with baskets and ferocious competition for plastic eggs. This bunny takes donations from parents, so the Friday before the hunt our driveway was a clearing house for people dropping off bags of eggs. The cooler was so full I had to empty it twice and it was fun to see people as they came and went. Having never lived in a neighborhood like this I was enchanted with the whole idea of neighborhood events; needless to say I enjoyed being a part of it. The hunt itself went well, though Mike and I struggled to hide 300+ eggs in time. We had cute prizes for the golden eggs and I wore my very fluffy bunny ears and tried with minimal success to direct the hordes. I didn’t realize how many kids there actually were in the ‘hood, but it was fun to meet them and their parents and marvel at how amazingly polite and well behaved the huge majority were. I’m planning for a Halloween party next, complete with fortune tellers and dry ice punch. I think I may have missed my calling as a Girl Scout mom.
One of our neighbors is expecting twins and has been on bed rest – out came an email asking for help, and a group of us signed up to keep her and her family fed while she stayed off her feet. Coming from a place where I didn’t know my neighbors, and probably couldn’t have even identified by sight 75% of the people who lived within a square block of me, the fact that so many people took on the care and feeding of a neighbor was both shocking and touching. I gladly carried my enchiladas down the street and thought how nice it was to live in a place where people actually look out for each other.
We kicked off summer socializing two weeks ago with a cocktail party on Friday night. Mike made mint juleps and we ended up with a huge group of people who stuck around until well after 10, enjoying the company and the warm evening and the pleasure of being outside with nothing else to do. We’ve been talking about hosting cocktail hour “once it got warm” so it was a pleasure to put it into practice and spend some totally unstructured time enjoying our neighbors. Someone else picked up the torch this week and we were happy to walk down the road and hang out again. I’ve been told that this neighborhood is unique in its desire to socialize but I prefer to think of it as a Tennessee thing. Regardless of whether we “got lucky” with the neighborhood or with the state in general, we’re excited by the social life that is beginning to develop. Often when we drive the back way home or go for a wander in the car, I look at the great houses on many acres of rolling horse pastures and think that we should have bought something like that. In a similar fashion, I daydream about all the great old houses in the long established Nashville neighborhoods whenever we drive into town… but now that we’re getting to know people, having Friday night drinks and casual Tuesday dinners and ‘oh, stop by and chat’ afternoons, I’m so pleased that we chose a neighborhood instead – this neighborhood, in particular. Like the small nose and big family I’ve talked about wanting, I’ve also always wanted a sitcom-style block party neighborhood, and I just might have lucked into one. I’m thrilled!