neighbors

It's the end of a shorter week, and once again my weekend adventuring might be rained out, but after three months, I've finally met my neighbors. I share a fence with three generations of Puerto Ricans on one side, a family I haven't met yet on the other, and 2 musicians who seem to always be partying and have a dog named "Dude."

I've lived for three years as a renter not knowing most of the people who shared my street, and this has been nice. I don't feel nearly as transitional as I have in the past. This is the most comfortable I've felt anywhere, and the first time I've really made any effort to put down roots.

I'm glad that I think I can get along with these people. I was stupid enough to look up the sex offender registry for the neighborhood and my gut feelings about certain houses were confirmed. It's hard for me to look at that one guy working in his garden and think about how many boys' lives he's destroyed, and I wonder if the younger strung-out guys hanging around there know or are just too desperate to care.

I think of my parents' neighborhood where people used to freak out when immigrant families moved in even though they took better care of their yards and were a lot nicer to deal with, and where people who've lived next to each other for years build huge fences so they never have to see each other. That's no way to live.

But that's the mentality of so much of this world that doesn't want to see, doesn't want to interact, is always in open conflict. I wish I could believe that people have gotten better but it seems more and more like there really is nothing new under this sun...