A follow-up to the last diary on community.
This diary’s topic: getting to know your neighbors.
Do you know any of your neighbors? Are you in a house or an apartment building? Other? (Dorm, barracks, underwater cave…)
Have you ever invited neighbors to your house or yard for a party?
Ever helped to create a block or neighborhood party?
If you haven’t met any of your neighbors, yet, how would you go about that? FOr those of you that have, what method do you use?
If you haven’t met anyone from your block, that is your assignment for this week. Figure out a way to meet one person from your block or apartment building (underwater cave).
If you wonder — how could this be political? I think I mentioned in last diary that the lady from China across the street from me said I’m the only one on the block who talks to her. She, uh, also asked me in 2004 who to vote for, and said she would take my word for it.
That’s when community gets political, eh?
The neatest thing of all is that creating community by getting to know your neighbors makes your life richer.
(If we don’t build a different world, who will?)
method of becoming friends, mending friendships.
Anyone know the story? I think that’s the correct two historical figures. Mentioned here because it points the way to an interesting method for getting to know neighbors… and ties in to the last diary.
Barn Raising, a Noble and Needed Tradition.
http://www2.boomantribune.com/story/2006/2/9/185417/0868
The story is that they had been fast friends. Then had a tremendous argument over (who knows what), and neither man would speak to the other for years. Smallish country, both ran in the same circles.
After years, one of them finally figured out a solution. He went over to the other guy’s house, knocked on the door. Told him that he was working on some research, and needed to re-read some material from a rare book the other fellow had. Asked to borrow it.
And that broke the ice.
Ties in to the other diary, of course, because it’s about the power of asking someone else to help you, and the power of our desire to respond positively.
I have an interesting situation with my immediate neighbors (those who live on either side of me).
On one side are the Democrats (I know this because I’ve seen them at caucuses). They have been intolerant and difficult to live with. I have two dogs that I let out for about 5-10 minutes 3-4 times a day. If one of them EVER barks – I get yelled at. They have even threatened to call the cops on me over this – all the while yelling at me, which is why the dogs were barking in the first place.
On the other side are conservative Christian Bush-supporters. I know this because they invite me to their church functions during the holidays and they had a Bush/Cheney sign in their yard during the last election. These people have been the absolute BEST neighbors. They shovel my snow and he helps me with yard work. One time when I had run into the woman who lives there and told her I was having some back trouble, a few minutes later they brought me dinner.
Its really a testament about how we shouldn’t judge people too much by their politics.
Yep. In fact, I am seeing the folly of judging others at ALL, by ANY of their “labels.” Been wrong way too often, once I got to know them.
I am sort of a loner by nature, (born without any social small talk genes,) so becoming an intimate part of any communuity is not something I am very good at. Which is probably good, since is live in a state someone recently referred to as “Minnesota Ice”.
For the last six years I’ve lived in senior apartment buildings, one in a small town, now this larger one in an urban setting. In both, the majority of my neighbors were older, white, very conservative and very old school Christian folks who, if they really knew all about who I am, might just swallow thier dentures whole. 🙂
But if you want to see community building in action, come to one of these places full of old folks, because they are very very good at setting them up for themselves. It’s like a re-creation of their former lives, only replacing family members with neighbors, watching out for each other, and creating a social system based on shared values and centered around religion.
I tend to seek out the few non comformists in these groups that I feel more comfortable with , and here, most of these happen to be black.
Overall, I’ve seen a much stronger desire and ability to create community among the minority populations I’ve lived among, and among the poor, than I have seen in the white culture. Not sure if this because of stronger shared cultural roots? Shared economic need? Less competition for goods and power, thus more ability to collaborate “in community?” It’s a fascinating thing to explore.
re minority communities. Amazingly, it wasn’t hard for me as a white person to be accepted as a member, as long as I wasn’t being judgemental, or a total cultural idiot.
I think it’s need. Shared need. The “haves” can isolate. The “have-nots” can’t, really.
Has anyone seen that movie about Argentina when the economy tanked, and people started building community? “Argentina: Hope in Hard Times”.
http://www.movingimages.org
Ichecked apt community, know all my damned neighbors because I am the resident manager!
I used to manage a 4-plex, but the owners retained the right to decide who could live there. Baaaad combination. I have some stories… like the oven that’d caught fire with the emptied 2nd floor fire extinguisher sitting next to it, the living room with the garbage can sitting in the middle.
My solution to getting THEM to get it all out was quite creative, and very enjoyable.
I feel for you Lookingup. I am very fortunate my owner(52 units) leaves me alone. I see the property manager maybe twice a year. They pretty much leave me be. I am grateful for that. The complex is pretty upscale so I have had very few problems. Only two evictions that never had to go to court. I got them out. We’ll have to swap stories sometime. It can be challenging.
The wife met me in the garden. She had a bowl of fresh ginger scones. We talked gardening but she seemed to have something on her mind. Finally as we neared the house, she said “Do you have trouble sleeping at night?”
Well yes, some nights I have insomnia. Why do I disturb your sleep? I go into my studio/office which is not over your apartment.
No not me. But my husband gets emotionally upset if he hears anything at all at night.
Mmmm, the scones are very good. But they make me feel so s l e e p y ….zzzzzzzz
but they had also left behind a huge stuffed and yucky chair in the living room… and their camper shell for their pick-up down on the lawn.
I called some young guys I knew. “Get a friend with a truck, come pick this thing up, and put it somewhere. Not your place. Somewhere I don’t know about. Thanks.”
So they did.
When the former tenants knocked on my door wanting their camper shell, I told them I had NO idea where it was, but I knew who to ask to return it…
IF and/or WHEN all the crap (I can’t begin to describe how much crap was all over the floors in nearly every room of the apt.) — ALL the crap — upstairs was gone.
Oddly, it put the fear of god into them, and they got everything out. Still needed tons of cleaning, but at least it was managable.
Grin.
I love Yes! Magazine because it often raises the issue of community building.
http://www.yesmagazine.org
There is another side to this coin.
When I came home with my four year old child from burying my husband, I found a swastika painted on my garage door. The obituary in our local paper noted that my husband had been Jewish.
When a neighbour wanted to buy my car, and I declined to sell it, I started getting tickets when I parked in front of my own house. Then it was towed. A nice woman at the police department said that this happens frequently in our town; the harrassing neighbour hoped I wouldn’t be able to afford getting my car back, and he could buy it at auction with a little more help from his buddy in law enforcement. My neighbour now parks two of his cars in front of my house.
No lawn sign supporting liberal legislation has survived 24 hours. The same cannot be said for the “Read Your Bible”, “Support Your Local Police”, “Bush/Cheney”, and a host of Right-to-Life and anti immigration slogans plastered up and down the street.
Mine had been an emergency safe house for battered women and children, but I removed myself from the program when it became clear that I could no longer offer a safe place.
When property values went sky high, several neighbours wanted to buy my home at a rock bottom price. For years I repaired vandalism and fended off police, fire marshalls, rat inspectors, etc., all of whom said they’d tag the complaints as “unfounded”.
Three years ago, I added an MLK bumbersticker to my car, and within a week, a gang of young men were pounding on my walls in the middle of the night, shouting, “Come out, nigger.” They obviously didn’t know me by sight, or they’d have yelled, “Come out, niggerlover.”
Thirty years of this is all I can take. I’ve moved in with friends and am selling out, but not to anybody in the neighbourhood.
So, no. I don’t “know” the neighbours. And I don’t want to.
I am so sorry to hear something like this happened to you. I commend your bravery, but also your wisdom in getting out. Sooner or later some sicko would have tried to hurt you. Be Safe.
Thank you.
I am sharing a home with three women I’ve known for over 30 years. We used to joke that when we were old, we would all live together in an “Ovarium”. We are classical musicians and radical progressives who love art and literature. I am in heaven !
find a new home in a hood like mine, which after reading your story, I feel kind of guilty admitting that it is a veritable utopia of community, mostly people who came to the US from other places, the children argue over whether tortillas come from Korea or Ethiopia, all they know is that all the moms either make them or have them in the fridge and they are good.
I even did a diary here about my hood, it is so remarkable.
It is awkward “staying” with friends, no matter how loving and welcoming they are, but for you, it is very necessary, and will lead you to a good home of your own that you can be proud to share with the ladies who need it.
After raising my daughter alone, and then living alone, it is an adjustment, but a good and necessary one.
I read your lovely ‘hood diary with joy. I know that the few streets making up my ex-neighbourhood is not representative, and really a product of a few bullies who’s influence far outweighed their numbers. The community you described is much more like other places I’ve lived, and more the norm.
And I should have mentioned, while I was painting the neighbourhood with a broad brush, that at Halloween, many parents bringing their children Trick-or-Treating seemed to be aware of what was going on, and were feeling safely anonymous enough to be very kind and friendly from behind their masks. If this sounds snarky, it is not. I know they were afraid, too, of becoming targets.
I think I’d have bailed way before that. A good neighborhood is like gold, and your story illustrates that a lousy one is hell.
Yikes!
I just moved last November. The weather kept people inside but more recently we had some spring days. The man on one side came over to introduce himself and apologize for his dog barking at me. Lately, I met his wife, Lillian who offered her husband’s services anytime I need any heavy work done. (ha!) She wants to go cycling with me. The neighbours in the posh house on the other side don’t seem to see me. I have been unable to make eye contact with them and they do not talk to anyone. I’m afraid to go and introduce myself in case they turn away.
I met Dave, the HazMat specialist, across the street at the advance polling. Liz, two houses down is a teller that I see at the bank and we talk about clay soil and airplane noise.
Most of all I like Lillian and feel more secure now. If there was ever an emergency, I would knock on her door and I hope she will do the same to me. Politics? we’ll see.
Turn off the tv. Walk your dog. Go to church, mosque, synagogue, etc… Smile. Hang out with a shovel when it snows.
Just go introduce yourself.