Being Neighbors

This morning a young neighbor came over for coffee in the garden. We had a lovely morning. She told her story of surviving the foster system as a child. She is having me over for coffee at her house with another young neighbor tomorrow morning, already. I found a note on my door with the invite.

When I mentioned we had been wanting to have a cul de sac BBQ for years and haven't put it together yet, she enthusiastically volunteered to make flyers and pass them out to all the people we can see in both directions. We made the date for July 4th at 11:00.

We don't really know our neighbors well. There are the super quiet, never see them ones, the guy who vacuums up dirt from moles in his pristine yard, the bachelor who is so self sufficient that he paints, roofs, landscapes a gorgeous home all by himself, the race car wanna be with annoying mosquito buzzing cars, the ones who wash their cars and wax them ritualistically, the drug dealers and thankfully, the identity theft ringleader is gone.

Some only mow their yards. Some have wonderful landscaping. A few we don't know who really lives in the house at all. Invisible.

These neighbors are of every age, all walks of life. Some don't work and we can't figure out how they do their nice life?

Sometimes the police comes into our 'hood. Often, some angry neighbor calls the fire department on another neighbor for backyard burning.

The thing is that times could get hard here shortly - we could all need each other sometime. Craig and I grew up in small, neighborly communities, playing, borrowing, helping, working together and many times sharing pies, veggies, bread and home made ice cream along with BBQ's. Watering for each other, pet sitting etc. Ice tea on the porch at the very least.

The more we're out on our porch, hollering across the way or greeting someone getting their mail, the more they initiate with us and vice versa. We're starting to be a waving hello kind of neighborhood! Friendly like. It's about time - 9 years. Feels horrible that it has taken this long, but it's a start. It feels like we have been shut off in a little tiny huddle for years and years, not part of the heartbeat of the life around us.

Francis Chan says that manure in a pile stinks, but if you spread it out it makes everything grow beautifully. We're willingly in the manure spreader getting broadcasted....................

Could be fun?!?!?! Could be a challenge?!?!!?!?!? Could be we enjoy each other and have something to offer each other that's valuable. Who knows, maybe we think they need us, but we need them?

We could graduate, move up, to live bands and cuban style street dancing in the fall! :)

If you see a faint glow and hear a dance beat rumbling late into the night it could be our neighborhood.

The food will be great, this we know.