In The Neighborhood

I grew up happily bouncing between my grandparents' small farming village and my parents' small town in East Germany and among my many wonderful memories is a feeling of community.  The mail carrier knew you by name as did the clerks at the small grocery stores.  We invited neighbors to our birthday parties and lent a hand to those in need.  If you were doing something you weren't supposed to do, you could be pretty sure that it was going to come to your parents' attention one way or another and if you were out and about as a kid, it was not uncommon for a neighbor to give you a piece of fruit or candy to sustain you in your childhood adventures.

I have missed this feeling of community since moving to the US, but in our current neighborhood, I am getting more of it than in any other place we had lived previously.

For example, when our lawn care person had to cut hours due to long-term illness toward the end of the mowing season and our yard was slowly overgrowing, a neighborhood teen showed up and mowed it for us.  When Ella went to visit our semi-retired neighbors to meet their new kitten, she came home with a huge box of fancy chocolates in fall shapes (leaves, acorns, pumpkins, etc.) and instructions to share them with her siblings.

In late summer, we watered a neighbor family's flowers and tomatoes while they were on vacation and we shared our enormous basil harvest with several neighborhood friends.

In mid-October I started the "Boo" and then excitedly watched the signs spring up on our street's front doors as the tradition was paid forward until we were booed ourselves.

When another neighbor found out that Ella likes Frida Kahlo and was going to dress up as the Mexican artist for Halloween, she appeared at our door right around that time with a piece of Frida-inspired art for Ella's room.

And when I mentioned in passing to a neighbor that we have an outpatient surgery on the calendar for one of our family members later this month, she immediately offered to bring us dinner the day of the surgery.

I remember quite well the sadness I felt when we moved from our dream home to this house in order to get closer to the services our children need.  The house is still not my favorite though we have made many improvements (more on that in another post maybe), but one of the unexpected silver linings has been this colorful assortment of neighbors of all ages and from many different backgrounds who are trying their best not to let closed doors and electronic screens stand in the way of real community.  And for that, I am thankful.