New Eyes
My 25 year old cousin is enjoying her stay with me, not so much for my company (I'm sure the familial bonds play a part) but because so much is happening outside. My cousin had been holed up in what she calls a 'housing farm' up in northern PG County, car-less. The house farm has single family home crops, townhome crops, and condo/apartment crops where she could go days without seeing another human, with her parents as the exceptions. Even on days where she doesn't leave my house, she sees people walking, drunk guys screaming, homeless guys pushing things, kids screaming, a whole show of humanity all from her window. Maybe I've been here too long but the screaming people have lost their charm.For her the neighborhood is wonderful and exciting, for slightly different reasons I find the neighborhood wonderful and exciting. For her a 2 mile walk in any direction is an enjoyable excursion, and the centrality of the neighborhood is an added bonus. For me centrality good, mixed in with several transportation options, but a >2 mile trek better not include huge highways (New York Avenue) and should have places of interest along the way. Also for me the wonderfulness rests on knowing my neighbors, something she's cluing into. A couple of neighbor ladies stopped her on the sidewalk to interview/ interrogate/ check her out and another instance (in the middle of the day while I was at work) where she needed a tool, I told her if she didn't find it, which neighbors were home who might lend her a plunger.
It's been interesting getting her perspective of the neighborhood.
Labels: neighbors, quality of life
posted by Mari @ 14.12.09
2 Comments:
That is lovely!
Poetic, almost!
Did you ever read an issue of the Utne Reader circa 1995 with the cover story, "Cities Don't Suck"? It was really eye-opening to me at the time
I used to subscribe to Utne so I probably did.
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