Day 36 – Neighbor

I am told shoes thrown over power lines is an indicator for drug dealing – like a modern day tell similar to how people found their way to Speakeasies during Prohibition.  There is a pair strewn over the power lines just a few houses down from mine.  To get to my parking space, I have drive through an alley way often flooded with sketchy looking people so the drug dealing isn’t that surprising.   What is surprising is my own ambivalence.  I should muster a neighborhood watch group, call the police or at least seek out others in my area who are bothered by drug dealing and the crime apt to follow including the recent shooting on our block.  But I sit here instead glad that my specific complex is gated. 

Growing up I knew the names of everyone on my block many of whom I had routinely stepped foot inside their homes.  Now, I know my next door neighbor’s name but that is only because sometimes I get sent her mail.  I have never been inside her house even though we have lived four feet from one another for the better part of three years.  I have no idea the names of the others in my small complex, I might be able to pick them out by sight and have a faint idea of their respective cars.  Who they are escapes me – what are their hopes, dreams, fears, etc.  Are they upset by the shoes over the power line in our alley?  Are they the drug dealers?  Do they even know? 

I know my life would be richer if I lived in something closer to the kind of community I grew up in.  I have tried in my years of apartment living to cultivate more of an openness to those around me but over the years became resigned to anonymity.  Perhaps it’s the turn over, perhaps it’s the rhythm of my twenty-first century life where I am more apt to invest in cyber community (hence this blog) than the flesh and blood a stone’s throw from my door, or perhaps it’s my general apathy that prevents me from getting to know my neighbors. 

Some might contend the community you create for yourself is your true community superseding those physically around you.  Maybe and I do love my self-created community.  As well, I could say I have maintained healthy boundaries whereas the over involved neighborhood relationship could be taxing.  Right, if I did become B-F-F’s with my next door neighbor coming home and laying on the couch not talking to anyone for hours might not be as easy to do.  Or worse yet, if we got in a fight it would be very difficult to avoid her.  Whereas when tension arises with my longer distance friends, we don’t have to see each other until it blew over. 

Still, I wonder every time I see the shoes over the power line if I’d be better off knowing my neighbors.