Or at least hope is a thing, my apologies to Emily Dickinson. I’d been running low and trying not to get too freaked out about it. Why am I so tired and drained? Why do I just want to go home and watch old reruns of “Will and Grace”? What is wrong with me? It can’t possibly be because I had a hectic summer launching the kid to college and then I moved myself. That’s ridiculous. I’m waaaaaay stronger, tougher, and more resilient than that. Ha!
I crack myself up sometimes.
Anyway, newsflash genius. Yes, that’s why. And being tired and drained leaves you more vulnerable to things like, say, Cheeto Flea antics. And that stranger on the subway who you are certain is giving you the stinkeye. They are definitely not having their own moment of “Why the hell do I just want to go home and watch ‘Will and Grace’ reruns?”. That’s reserved for yours truly.
But then the feathered thing landed. My new neighborhood. It’s a real neighborhood, in a way I haven’t experienced since I left a similar place in 2001. Now that says more about me than the places I’ve been in the last 16 years. I witnessed plenty of people being neighborly, and I had my moments of neighborliness, and I learned a lot, but it never felt quite like home.
But this new place does. When I walk down the main street to do my errands, in less than I mile I have witnessed a man opening a door for a woman with a baby carriage and he wasn’t even going into the store. Three women chatting over the library books one had just taken out, any number of people in twos and threes standing on the sidewalk chatting like it’s Sesame Street. The guy in the minimart/liquor store around the corner from my house didn’t care that I went in there and bought 1 banana. Just 1. The helpful guy in the hardware store apologized because the bolts I bought weren’t as shiny as the sample I had. He gave me a discount.
What fresh heaven is this? Let’s be clear. This is not in the Midwest, where I’m led to believe this happens all the time. I’ve walked in a shopping mall in Iowa, and everyone said hi to me and it freaked me out. If I don’t know you, I’m good without a greeting. Don’t they get tired putting out all that friendliness?
No, this is appropriate friendliness. People who know each other are chatting (and not engaging me needlessly), and people in the stores are giving great customer service, and strangers are showing kindness and courtesy by opening doors for each other.
Relax, this is still Boston — in the morning, the road rage honking surpasses my old neighborhood, which is saying something. But I don’t have to drive to work, so I don’t care. And it helps me know this is real. Because I’m still pinching myself.
Cheeto Flea is running amok. The shootings continue unfettered with the NRA still saying more guns will solve the problem. Hate groups are oozing out of the woodwork like cockroaches coming out on a crumb-filled night.
But I’ve found a little piece of hope, civility, and poetry to keep moving forward. And a shout out to my friend Becky whose love for Emily Dickinson made me pay more attention to her poetry than I would have.
