We have been trying, in various ways for the three-and-a-half years we have lived here, to meet our neighbors.
Both Jeff and I have a low number of pegs, and quickly reach our maximum capacity for focusing individually on the people in our lives, but we have always wanted to know our neighbors – even if they don’t become our best friends.
Most of them keep to themselves, and we rarely spot them except when they drive away or are pulling into their garages. It’s often hard to even catch their eyes as we wave.
Even though it is not a strength for either of us, we try to initiate contact as much as we can.
We invited everyone to an open house when we moved in, we do our own yard work, take walks around the neighborhood, and wave to everyone we see. Most of them have at least started waving back, but that is pretty much the extent of the exchanges.
The day we moved in, the family next door saw us moving boxes and offered to help. They were awesome neighbors with two great little kids who rode their Power Wheels around and around the cul-de-sac until the batteries ran out; at some point, we found out we all even attended the same church. And then they moved to Florida.
A couple months after we moved in, we planted a semi-dwarf apricot tree in our backyard, because apricots are my favorite fruit. Last year, we had around 25-30 apricots. The year before we had three. This year we didn’t bother to count. I’m bad at estimating numbers, but it was easily over 200. We gave some away to family and brought a ton to work, but we still had way more than we could possibly eat. If we kept them around, they would just go bad.
Not knowing how it would go, or how awkward we would be, we decided to walk around to our neighbors and give them some apricots.
The house with the amazing family that moved away? Another family lives there now. Their kids play in the cul-de-sac sometimes, but my guess is they have been taught – very well – not to talk to strangers. We do get waves and hi’s from the family, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. We rang the doorbell twice, and were about to give up, but they finally answered, so we gave them a bunch of apricots. The dad seemed very receptive, thanked us for them and said he didn’t even know we had an apricot tree. The daughter peeked out from behind him, smiled and waved at us. We still don’t know their names. :/
The guy next to us lives alone. He looks a little intimidating at first, but is really a giant teddy bear. He didn’t answer the door, so we’ll have to try again.
The family across the cul-de-sac has three kids, two who drive in and out more times a day than I can count. They are the furthest distance from us in the cul-de-sac, but we have had more interaction with them than any of the other neighbors. They go to a church near here and have pool parties in their backyard almost every Sunday afternoon during the summer. When the dad answered, he had a line of winter boots next to the door and he said he was getting ready to do an enactment during Vacation Bible School at his church – boots, jackets and all. I mentioned the 101-degree heat this week and he just said the kids were worth it, and thanked us for the apricots. As we walked away, I felt like I should re-learn CPR and offer to go to the VBS and stand in the back, just in case.
The woman on the other side of us is an interesting character. She rarely leaves the house, her TV is almost always on and very loud, and she feeds pretty much every stray cat in our neighborhood – while cooing at them. She also has a sign on her front door that says, “We don’t answer the door, so please leave.”
We gave it a shot anyway and rang the doorbell. No answer. Not wanting to entirely ignore her wishes, and figuring our only shot was to leave the apricots on her doorstep, that’s what we did. Our tree is right next to the fence we share, so she would probably know they were from us. If she never knew, that was okay too.
Almost exactly 24 hours later, our doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole and saw her.
When I opened it, she asked if the apricots were from us and I said yes. She thanked us for them, said she loved apricots and these were wonderful, and gave us our Tupperware back, along with a package of store-bought brownies. They were probably something she had in her freezer. I felt bad accepting them, but figured it was her way of saying thank you, and I didn’t want to pass up any kind of exchange between us.
Hopefully we can find more ways to interact with our neighbors. We may never have block parties or barbecues, and we may never know all of them. But we are actively trying, and slowly making progress – thanks to our apricot tree.