I brought my children to the new house first thing this morning (on two hours of sleep, agg) to clean and spiff it up before we start to bring in all of the major furniture tomorrow. With bicycles and helmets in tow, I had just gotten them all set up to play in our new back yard when over the fence I heard a "Yoo hoo!" and was happily surprised to see a blonde woman pop her head up over the white wooden posts to say hello.
Willowy and put together, she was a beautiful lady somewhere in the 'middle age' sporting a black top and leggings... and very large black pearl rings. (A bit fancier than me in my scroungy leftover maternity pants, which I really need to give to Amvets one of these days.)
"Hi!" she beamed, "Are you moving in here?"
"Yes, we just signed our lease yesterday! Are you the one who takes care of this beautiful garden?"
This is one of the most attractive features of our new home - right beyond our back fence on the dirt alleyway that separates us from the neighbors - there is a stretch of publicly owned land where loving hands have built and tended a community vegetable garden. It is gorgeous and well designed: wooden train stakes forged into in elegant boxes filled with soil and compost - overflowing with fresh leafy greens and a variety of herbs and vegetables. My husband and I have wondered since we first saw the house who tends this garden!
"Yes," she blushed, "That's me. We've been working on it since December. I'm Sydney*, and we live just across the alley. This is a wonderful place. You are going to be very happy here."
For the next ten minutes while my one and three year olds raced around the yard, Sydney filled me in on her backstory with our new house. She has a niece who lives one block away who is our age and has small children close in age to ours - two boys and a girl, in the same order. She really wanted her niece to apply for our rental ("I couldn't believe what they were renting it for, you guys have this place for a steal!") but they weren't up for the stress of moving with their three little ones.
Sydney told me all about the neighbors on our street that she knows, which ones are friendly and outgoing... which ones have children. She described the summertime festival on our street and how friendly the neighborhood is as a whole. "And your family lives on the very best block of the very best street!"
"That's what everyone keeps telling us! We feel so blessed and lucky to be here."
She shared little nuggets of local gossip such as the fact that the neighbor a few houses down has a heart of gold but a booming sense of humor. "He'll be the one who'll introduce himself by saying something like, 'So you have THREE kids, hmmmmm? How did THAT happen?'"
Before we parted ways I entreated Sydney to give me gardening lessons once we've settled in. "I absolutely love what you have done here with the community garden and I would be so excited if you would show me how to create something like that in our new (huge) back yard."
I added, "I'm really sorry your niece didn't get this place but we're so grateful to be here and I am really happy to have a friend across the alley."
What a great start to the day! We're apparently trading one small, tight-knit community for another. Every single time I have spent more than ten minutes at the new house I have met somebody; a new neighbor, a mother with a stroller, a jogger from down the block - it seems like there are potential friends everywhere.
Our children also spent three hours playing outdoors this afternoon while my mom and I worked on the house ~ riding their bikes and running through the yard. They had such a great time leaping and laughing and riding around ~ this move is going to be fantastic for their physical fitness level... and it was such a thrill as a parent at bedtime to see how tired they were. The actually *asked* me if they could go to bed because they were so worn out from all of the activity. Wow!
Speaking of bedtime, it's high time for me to head in that direction as well. I'm thrilled though to know that as of tomorrow we will live on a street so friendly that folks work together on community gardens and pop their well-coiffed heads over fences just to say hello and 'Welcome to the Neighborhood!'
*Name changed to protect the privacy of the party in question.
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