We moved here 2 years ago last month. I'll try to keep this story short without leaving out anything important. This is a skill I am working hard to gain, it is a work in progress.
The story of how we ended up here would be considered a miracle in itself but maybe another time I'll tell you that one.
We arrived on the hottest day of the summer that year (101 degrees) and set up our camping equipment in the back yard much to the surprise of all the neighbors on either side. The home we were moving into was vacant and had been for over a year. Being a bug a phobe (as I call it) we had stopped by a department store, picked up bombs to bomb the house before moving our things into it. Over kill? Probably but this is me authentic, unique and when my mind is set unshakable. Our neighbors first impression of us? Two crazy women, one bed in one tent AND they had a Doberman and a Mutt.
Before coming I had heard all about the neighbors on either side of us. Our friends lived on the one side so we were very familiar with them. They filled us in on the others close while we sat with a fan blowing on us, the dogs safely under the shade of the huge maple tree (something I've always wished for) and just relaxing. We were filled in on the neighbors from the Middle East... from IRAC and hardly speak English. We learned about our friends perception of this. Next to our Middle Eastern neighbors was a family (duplex) that were very quiet, the wife suffering from depression, often fighting and the husband nice but a rough exterior. On the other side of the street were the "crack heads" with no evidence of this being truth but it was a perception. We were given warnings to protect us from making mistakes with involvement with the "wrong" crowd. Oh I so love them for their concern. We listened carefully and thought (both my partner and myself) this will turn out exactly like we want it to.
The first year was busy with working on our duplex, finding a job, getting the pets settled and all of the normal things that go into a big move. The yard was overgrown but it was exactly what I had again wished for, green and growing wildly just waiting for loving hands to prune it, make it ours. I keep trying to tell the neighbors that I do NOT have a green thumb, I just help things that wish to thrive, thrive but they don't believe me. This first year neighbors began bringing me their sick plants. I would put them with the healthy plants and ask the healthy plants to encourage them and within a month or so send the now healthy plant back to its home. Still laughing over that one. Well all except for one that was a real survivor and the owner decided to leave it here and just come visit it occasionally.
Working in the yard gave me the opportunity to have short visits with neighbors as they came and went. When the basil took over 5 different pots, yes it was a mess but they were too healthy to throw out, I took pots to many of the neighbors and even gave one to a sales person walking by trying to sell cable to the neighborhood. Another time a lady from the apartment complex down the street asked about all of my plants on the porch as she walked home from the bus station. She said, "I sure would like a start". As I had restarted the over growth in pots that spring, I sent her home with a couple.
It was during these wonderful days that the diversity in the neighborhood became a colorful, beautiful landscape of its very own. The "crack head" neighbors are really sweet and visiting with the lady I learned that we had both lost a teen age child finding that we were much more similar than not. The Middle Eastern Family has become an extended family, we share food back and forth, laughter, spoil their children on holidays and if we ever need anything heavy moved they are on their way smiling, happy to help family. The neighbors next to the Middle Eastern Family moved but before doing so, each time I saw either of them, they would return a warm smile. Another moved into their duplex, a black man who after visiting for a while out back, I learned that we both had a passion for dog training. What a beautiful landscape of diversity and if I had listened to well meaning people who out of nothing but love wanted to protect us, it would have never been seen.
What did I learn? We, as human beings, are more similar than we are different. We each hold our own perception of events surrounding us. We each choose, in every moment, how our own personal worlds will respond to us by saying yes to the positives and letting go of the rest.
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