Lessons from living in the ‘hood…

I moved to my 50-year-old, 136-home, tree-shrouded neighborhood in 2002. Starting over again. Fortunately, I had a couple of aces up my sleeve to ease my way in - I was a walker and had an absolutely handsome dog (the luck of mutt genetics.) Walkers who were also dog lovers wanted to stop, pet the big boy, and ask about him. Oh, and yes, some actually got around to asking about me. (And some, not. Clearly the star of the show was at the end of the leash.)

As a dog person, I could be a bit shortsighted and remember only the dog’s name, but not that of the owner walking their critter. In situations such as this, after I’d greeted a dog by name, but stumbled around trying to recall the owner’s name, I generally found honesty to be the best policy. Admitted my myopia regarding human names, but not that of dogs. I found my vulnerable admission often built a deeper connection with a neighbor. It was also a fairly decent guarantee that, from here on in, the two-leggeds would remember each other’s names after this moment of honesty.

Election season in the early oughts brought with it a profusion of yard signs, or laying down the scent of one’s political beliefs. Some of those so-called “scents” were complete 180’s from my preferred scent trail. Big time! However, a significant lesson was awaiting my scent orientation and accompanying judgments. Our neighborhood’s private listserv was the avenue for disseminating SOSs from neighbors who needed help with minor house disasters. I hopped on that vehicle several times and twice, the first neighbor to show up was someone whose yard signs I would have been thrilled to see stolen! (Yeah, yeah, still human.) He was wonderful each time, supplying a quick fix in difficult situations. Did I say wonderful? Absolutely and incredibly sweet about his interventions. (Is there an emoji for Jan hanging her head in shame?)

Let there be light! Living in the ‘hood became a petri dish for my often reflexive, but superficial judgments of those who SHOULD believe what I believed and the sad corollary, that they weren't good people BECAUSE their beliefs were not congruent with mine. Ouch. Oh, such an OUCH. I just couldn’t transcend conceptualizing humane behaviors to the actual reality of living them with those who were different from me. I just couldn’t. I needed the tangible experience of living through differences with others, time and again, to enlarge my painfully limited view of humanity. Life in the ‘hood. Or, perhaps I should say live therapy in the ‘hood.

And, then there was the “Oh no, oh no, mega-development invasion.” (How about one more heartfelt OH, NO!!!!) I was serving on the Homeowners Association Board (sucker! sucker!) and received a “courtesy” call from the Project Manager of a 2400-home, building-in-progress, mega-development. Just wanted to let us know that the mega-development proposed opening a previously closed state road through our neighborhood to their multitudinous traffic. Through our quiet, non-sidewalked, everyone using the streets for walking, running, biking, pet-walking, and having wine on occasion, neighborhood. “Hey, have a nice day!” Click went the phone. And down went my heart.

Talk about feeling powerless. My lovely passive neighborhood, which I’d tried to galvanize very unsuccessfully, in the past, for food drives and other charitable efforts. My lovely passive neighborhood was going to become roadkill for a wealthy national developer. Um, “spitting in the wind” was one of my more printable thoughts at that moment.

The peace and safety of our neighborhood threatened, folks dug deep and found their inner Davids, with accompanying slingshots. Goliath was unaware of the slingshot load of public shaming headed its way. (As I’ve mentioned in past pieces, I do not believe in shaming on a personal level. However, when it comes to a corporate Tyrannosaurus Rex, I reframe shaming as the teaching of accountability.😉)

So we educated this monolith about being accountable to their new neighbors. More crudely, we publicly shamed the corporate bully up the wazoo (still trying to figure out where the “wazoo” is.) We plagued them where it counted - negative PR about a development with many homes needing to be sold. That ol’ reliable bottom line. Shamed them for using their money to roll over much older country neighborhoods and for being downright unneighborly to those of us who had lived here for many years. (So there!) Quite a few nearby neighborhoods submitted letters from their Homeowners Associations to the elected County decision-making body - all in support of their fellow neighborhood. Neighbors who didn’t know each other organized car pools to the meetings of county bodies. Hoards of our neighbors (also known as VOTERS) showed up at County meetings with their kids, using the attendance as civics lessons.

Smile. We won. No road-opening.

The fact that a previously passive neighborhood found the courage to speak their truth to power gave me hope. Neighbors who originally felt we didn’t stand a chance now had the wonderful experience of feeling empowered. Empowered! Got that? Our little neighborhood found their inner “David’s” and who knows where that discovery took each person in their own personal lives. I’ll likely never know, but I rejoice that seeds of personal empowerment were also planted. Go ‘hood!

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