Who What Where? (Most Don't Care) - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg

Who What Where?
(Most Don't Care)

Our hellos are guarded,
our nods terse when we meet.
Not much interaction
occurs here on this street.
I admire her flowers;
she smiles and looks away.
(If she's feeling chatty
she'll note the pleasant day.)
Talk is very tiny
here in my neighbourhood.
No one wants to visit.
No one thinks they should.
I don't know their stories
and none of them know mine.
What I find disturbing
is that they think that's fine.
Can't match names to faces,
and don't know who lives where.
I am bothered by this,
but most don't seem to care.
Don't know who has children
or owns a dog or cat -
and I am alone in
my worries about that.
Don't know who's seen sorrow,
or where a babe's been born -
this lack of connection
has given cause to mourn.
I mourn friendships not forged
and celebrations missed.
We are not connected.
We merely co-exist.

By Sharon Flood Kasenberg, August 20, 2015

At this point I'd probably settle for peaceful co-existence. It would at least be a step in the right direction. But somehow that seems like a very low standard to aim for. Surely a more community-like vibe is possible in neighbourhoods today - right?

Several weeks ago we had our old car towed away. We had to - someone had called in a bylaw complaint because it didn't have a current sticker on the plate. Apparently that's a big no no in this city, even if the car is in relatively good shape - which ours was. It was about a dozen years old, and not an eyesore. It wasn't hurting anyone, but we were told we had to park it in the garage (which is full) or get a sticker on it to leave it in the driveway. Since getting a sticker would entail making expensive repairs (so that it would pass a safety check), and since it's a tight squeeze to put a car in our garage even when it's empty (which ours certainly isn't!), we opted to have it towed. We had only hung onto it for the past few years because having a second, but unusable car gave us a financial break on our son's car insurance. Now that he's married and taking care of his own insurance costs, we would have gotten rid of the car anyway.

But darn - it really ticked us off that somebody was persnickety enough to see if the car had a current sticker and then call in a complaint.

The problem started as soon as we moved in. I had this feeling that I should push myself a bit and introduce myself to the neighbours, but I didn't. There was still this stubborn part of me that said that because I was "the new kid on the block" they should be the ones to extend themselves and make introductions. In my excitement over being new, I forgot how easily all of us miss what is a huge big event to someone down the street, and how quickly our lives can get busy enough that even the best of intentions get pushed aside. Needless to say we didn't make any friends in the neighbourhood.

We did learn the names of the fussy people over the fence. They introduced themselves the first summer we were here - mostly because they wanted someone to gripe at about another neighbour. When we failed to come up with adequate complaints to keep the conversations flowing, they started to gripe about us too. I heard him once, out in his yard, laughing with one of his paid minions (either the pool man or one of his landscaping crew) about how we must have "come into some money" to get our roof done and put in new sod and garden beds. While the landscaping was being done they had harassed our landscapers - he had complained about them parking in front of our house and "congesting traffic". She had complained to the landscapers about our tree shedding blossoms over her fence, wanting them to come into her yard and prune it free of charge. I'm sure they spent all kinds of time complaining about how bad our lawn was when the cinch bugs and drought pretty well destroyed it, but they didn't seem happy about the fact that we made improvements either. No great surprise there - I'd already realized that they were the kind of people whose only satisfaction in life comes from complaining about what others aren't "doing right".

So when our car got towed away, I could hazard a guess as to who'd made the complaint. They probably thought an older model car parked next door would bring down their property value. Or maybe making that complaint was their thrill for the week. Who knows what goes on in the minds of some people?

Earlier this spring I'd noticed that he never seemed to be around. Usually, as soon as the weather got nicer, he'd be out in his yard, talking loudly on the phone or barking orders at one of the people he employed to work in his yard. But this year, as I readied my garden there was silence over the fence. At first I didn't really notice - I was largely preoccupied with my own thoughts. My younger son was getting married in a few months and we were throwing a reception for the happy couple. But as I thought about Dan getting married, it occurred to me (and not for the first time) that there was something wrong with our neighbour situation...

I grew up in a working class neighbourhood in Sault Ste. Marie. Most of the people who lived on our street were Italian, and a whole lot of them were related to each other. They mostly associated with each other, but we all knew everyone else's names and we all knew when big events were happening within families on the street. We heard rumours about who was getting married or having a baby. We smiled when we saw Mrs So and So out pushing the new bundle in her baby carriage, and maybe stopped to admire the baby. When the neighbourhood had trouble with flooding we all helped bail out each other's basements. And when someone on the street died, a neighbour would go door to door taking up a collection for a floral arrangement "from the neighbours."

It really began to bother me that my son was graduating and getting married within an eight day span, and not one single neighbour knew or cared. It bothered me even more when I began to consciously make note of the grumbling that I wasn't hearing from over the fence. My conscience was terribly bothered by the fact that I didn't know if my neighbour was dead or alive. Sure - we'd never really hit it off, but that didn't mean I wished any ill on him or his family. I still felt that something was wrong with a scenario where there could be so much excitement and misery going completely unacknowledged by the neighbourhood as a whole.

That's when I finally acknowledged just how dysfunctional my neighbourhood is.

Oh, we acknowledge each other with nods and perfunctory hellos when we pass each other, but that's as far as it goes. We don't know each other's names, recognize each other's children or pets, or have any idea what happens behind each other's doors. I'm convinced that most of them are very comfortable with the way things are. And I think that's exactly what makes us dysfunctional.

Is it right to grow comfortable with apathy? Is it right to not want to care about your neighbours?

When did we become so desirous of privacy that we started barring the doors to our hearts?

When did society adopt such a scarcity mentality that we couldn't acknowledge any beauty on the other side of the fence?

What happened to the sense of community that I knew as a child?

We don't need to be best friends with our neighbours, but we should know who they are. We should know their names and recognize the people in their households. We should be able to manage being kind to our neighbours - or at the very least manage to refrain from being small-minded and unkind. We should care enough to discuss reasonable complaints face to face and in a mature, rational manner.

We shouldn't ever be in a position to wonder for months whether a neighbour is dead or alive. I got my answer finally when I read his obituary in the newspaper. Needless to say, nobody on the street took up a collection for flowers. Maybe I should have, but a part of me said the effort would've been too little, and far too late.

Next time we move, I'll follow my gut instinct and make more effort to introduce myself and get to know the neighbours. It might not ensure friendships, but it will make hostility more difficult.

And maybe, just maybe, it will help my next neighbourhood become a more functional and friendly community to live in.