Hither and Yon: Neighbors Near and Far

Just before the trick-or-treaters head out, I have a non-spooky question. How do you define what your neighborhood is, and how much does it matter? Can you draw it on a map or is it more of a concept in your mind?

Getting More Colorful Close to Home, Even as October Ends

I’ve been wondering about this recently, as I experience a noticeable uptick in my own appreciation of the particular area, with a radius of about a mile, where we live, including the people I see regularly within our common circle. Since it’s been a full decade since we first arrived, this has been a very gradual process, moving almost like a slowing creeping vine — the good kind, like one that might bear grapes.

Here’s the symbol of the Diocese of NH which I happen to have handy; I’m going to borrow it gently.

“HI POLLLLYYYY!” rang out four year old R.’s voice, as I was running by his house at dusk recently. I didn’t turn around, but I did catch a glimpse of him, in his overalls, poking his head out of the front doorway.

We have become friends over the past year. The youngest of four kids who spend a lot of time playing outside, he enjoys tearing over to greet me to share news about what he’s up to — a new preschool, learning to ski, going swimming — topics shifting with the seasons. I’m honored that he’s willing to let me scoop him up for a hug, too. Spending a few moments chatting with this individual can truly make my whole day.

I don’t have a photo of R., but I’ll illustrate the sense of local connectivity with a spectacular autumn bouquet that another neighbor, also R., recently left off for me, for no particular reason other than she had flowers from her garden to spare.

Stunning, isn’t it? This R. (who is probably in the very first part of the Millennial generation) and I have forged a friendship largely due to the fact that I often walk Rocky — another R! — over near her place; in fact, she and her husband have been so hospitable, sharing their fields. And then there are the other neighbors with dogs that I see, and sometimes walk with, too; we might even change our direction in order to visit more with one another. Over time, these encounters have a pleasant way of adding up; the layers of familiarity deepen.

And Many Miles Before He Sleeps

As I perceive my own local heartbeat getting stronger, I’m also keenly aware of the fact that my husband’s experience of neighborhood is significantly different — broader, in a way. He lives where I live and therefore shares many of the same connections I do, some of them bolstered through me, I’d say. In addition, because of the nature of his position as a faith leader, he has a territory — one rich with relationships — that stretches from one end of the state to the other.

Recently, in fact, he drove almost three hours up to Colebrook on a Saturday and, the next morning, headed south to Keene for church. This isn’t really surprising (and New Hampshire is much smaller than, say Maine or Texas) but still, when he leaves “thither” and heads that far “yon” and then significantly “yon” again, I know that, a little bit like when I take a walk over to R.’s fields, he’s visiting regions of an expansive faith neighborhood.

Encompassing Them Both

If ever I feel — how can I help but? — a pang about not getting in the car to go with him on these trips, I get some comfort from remembering the final several stanzas of John Donne’s poem (written for his wife, Anne, around 1611) “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” :

Our two soules, therefore, which are one, / Though I must goe, endure not yet/ A breach, but an expansion, / Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.

If they be two, they are two so/ As stiffe twin compasses are two, /Thy soule the fixt foot,/ makes no show/ To move, but doth, if the’ other doe.

And though it in the center sit, / Yet when the other far doth rome,/ It leanes, and hearkens after it, /And growes erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to mee, who must/ Like th’other foot, obliquely runne;/ Thy firmnes drawes my circle just, /And makes me end, where I begunne.

Putting out of my mind for the moment the unfortunate fact that Anne Donne died a few days after she gave birth to their 12th child, on a date in 1617 that would become, 350 years later, my very own birthday…I can say I’m grateful for the sentiments expressed here. He may be writing about the kind of separation that happens in death, or the kind that happens with journeying — probably both — but the bottom line is he believes, or wants to believe, that they stay together in a way that matters most. Phew.

Thou Shalt

…love thy neighbor as thyself.” (Matthew 22: 37-39) Jesus didn’t spell out exactly how we identify who our neighbors are. Almost certainly, he wasn’t thinking in terms of particular “just around the block” proximity. But that always seems like an excellent place to start. The most salient part of the commandment, at least for me, is that our goal should be achieving a kind of seamlessness between caring about whoever we are and caring about whoever they are. A tall order, in any era, in any region of the world.

A week or so ago, I had the privilege of making a meal for a neighbor and then, the very next evening, making another meal for a friend who lives on the other side of town. In both cases, I was part of a team of people who came together in a mutual effort. When one set of containers came back, with a note, I felt certain that those vines were producing real fruit.

Do you think neighborhood is an old-fashioned concept — something you recall from childhood — or also something we need very much, right now? Happy Halloween…from my street over to yours. I won’t be needing any of that candy corn, by the way.