That Sense of Having a Place, Richard and Alex, Who Are My Neighbors, Part 1
I greet and thank Richard and Alex, say a big “Happy Birthday!” to Eleanor, then ask for the first story. We are about a minute into it when I realize a problem—my tech set-up isn’t working.It is Sunday, the 4th of July, and I’m hunched over my kitchen table. Instead of meeting face to face, Richard asked if we could do this over the phone. He and Alex are fitting me into their family day and a phone conversation means they can both participate while they work a puzzle with five-year-old Eleanor, who had a party on Saturday, and keep an eye on her little brother Lucas.“Okay,” I say to Richard and Alex who are my neighbors, “I think I've got this going.” My phone wasn’t recording, but some fiddling has paid off. “Richard, you said 2017, and then Alex, can you tell me that story again?”
Fond memories
Graciously, Alex retells the story. “My grandparents bought this house when I was around five or so. So let's see what year? Probably '84-ish, around there. And so I pretty much grew up in this house. My grandparents watched us after school, and overnight a lot. And so I have very fond memories of learning how to swim here and having dinners with the cousins." 
"We used to run up and down the street and play hide-and-go-seek in the yard, everybody's yards. It was very friendly back then.” She laughs as she remembers.“Then my grandparents both passed in 2016. So we ended up buying the house in 2017 from the estate. And so it's been interesting, you know, raising my kids here because I grew up here.” Again her bubbly laugh.With a smile I say, “No kidding! That must be special.”Alex agrees, “Yeah. It's—” She stops and starts again. She bypasses the frothy and inane special that I suggest and gets real. “It was definitely odd when we first moved in because it was, you know—I mean it's always been my grandparents' house.” I am so glad Alex can name this piece of her lived experience.
The same kitchen window
Odd. Of course it was. Place is no small thing in the lexicon of memory. Now Alex looks out the same kitchen window her grandmother waved to her from, she cares for the garden where she used to play hide-and-seek, and she kisses her children good-night under the roof that sheltered her as a child. Whatever the particular filigree of joy or sorrow, security or anxiety wrought by our past, how do we step into a once-familiar place and make our own designs and fresh patterns?Alex continues, “Slowly we're making [it] our own, which is nice.”I nod but then remember that she can’t see me. “Wonderful," I say aloud. "And the big moving-in process, the getting ready—you had Eleanor when you moved in, didn't you?”“We did,” Alex says. “She was...I believe she was a year and a half. She was born in June 2016. We moved in [on] Christmas Eve, 2017."
Accuracy and honesty
“Christmas Eve!” I say, “That's cool!” Once more Alex is quick with her accuracy and honesty. “I don't know what we were thinking!” I like her candor. She goes on and says, “It worked out that’s when the house closed, you know. We had to [move in that day]; it was either that or continue to pay [rent] for our apartment and the mortgage. So it was kind of,” she reaches for the right words. “It was very interesting. It was a very big move,” she chuckles and leaves me to imagine what interesting and big might encompass.I pick up on the mention of an apartment and ask where they were before the move. Alex replies, “We were in an apartment and we lived there for three years, I think? And that's where Eleanor was born. She learned how to walk there. But we wanted a space for her to be able to run around and, you know, play.”
Things worked out
“Yeah,” I say. I do know. ”It sounds like the timing of the estate and your needs with your family growing—things worked out. “Oh, yeah, definitely,” Alex says. “I think it was a good choice for us.” As she’s speaking, a baby’s voice joins in. “I hear someone singing. Who's that?” I ask, even though I know. “Hey, Lucas!” I greet the invisible and cheerful baby and wonder how we’ve gotten this far without hearing from him. “He's one, right?” Alex tells me, “He'll be one on Wednesday.” I grin. “Oh, my gosh, you've got those birthdays close together!”There is a smile in Alex’s voice when she says, “I don't think it was intentional, but right.”I refocus. “Well, what does it feel like to be back in this neighborhood? You said it was really friendly then.”
A different time
Alex answers, “I think that it still is, but it's just you know, a different time. It's not that the neighbors aren't friendly 'cause I think everybody, so far, has been amazing. It's just that, you know, I grew up in the ‘90’s and it was such a different...” She pauses and takes another approach. “It was not necessarily safer but it was just people thought about it differently, you know. So your parents didn't second guess; you just go into the front yard and run up and down the street—in the dark.”“Right,” I say and echo her words. “A different time.”Alex says again, “Yeah, definitely a different time. But as far as like our neighborhood, I think it's, you know, pretty great. Everybody's so friendly and we talk to people when they walk down the street and you kind of know people's names and I think that's kind of nice.”I have to agree with her. “I'm really starting to value that. I moved a lot in my life and this is…” I start over. “We're coming up on the longest I'll have stayed in one place and it really does make a difference. I don't think I understood neighborhood very well until we moved here.”
Our kids get to experience that for themselves
“Oh, yeah,” Alex agrees. “When I was younger, my grandparents lived in this house, we lived also on Miguel Street, but on the other side.” Lincoln Avenue bisects Miguel Street so there’s one block of Miguel to either side of Lincoln. Alex continues, “And so we had the run of the whole—like the whole both sides, you know? Definitely special, so I'm kind of glad, you know, our kids get to experience that for themselves.”“Right,” I say, but I can't begin to imagine what it would be like to grow up on the same street as my grandparents, or to see extended family daily, or even weekly. Visiting my Babushka meant a week-long drive from Maryland to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan—a road trip my family made every other hot and humid summer when I was a child. But that’s another story.
So much history
“Well, Richard,” I say. “What about you? What was it like for you moving into this house that has so much history and settling into this neighborhood?With zero hesitation Richard says, “I wanted it for my kids. I wanted a sense of being in one place. My parents moved us around a lot when I was younger. My dad worked for a company called…” he’s thinking. “It was Saga and then it was Marriott and then it was Sudexo. He ran kitchens at schools and hospitals and he was moved around. Yeah, like every five years or so as he would pick up a promotion or transfer. And so we'd pick and move.” Is it my imagination, or is there a hint of wistfulness in his voice?“I remember...” he continues, “let's see, my earliest memory was us at Watsonville. I grew up in Hemet, but I know we were in Santa Cruz, and in Santa Barbara before that. So I didn't have any place that I remember as being kind of my hometown. And I really wanted that for Eleanor and Lucas. We want—we want that sense of having a place.”
Roots instead of rootless
Of his wandering childhood, I ask, “Would you say rootlessness fits?” Without a pause he answers, “Yeah, yeah.” A beat and then he says again, “Yeah. I think that's a good word for it.” Richard longs to give Eleanor and Lucas what his wife Alex clearly had and loved. A hometown. A neighborhood.Whatever the catalyst that moved different neighbors to this street—from Marianne’s move with her parents in 1972, to Rachel’s relocation after the 2008 housing crash, to Mike’s arrival in January 2020—each of them wants the thing Richard named so well: a sense of having a place. A place where you know your neighbors and they know you. A place to put down roots and let them grow deep. A place to be seen, to be known, and to belong.
Some happy news! Who Is My Neighbor? is featured in my local newspaper. You can find the column by CLICKING HERE. The work is spreading and you can share it too.I'm grateful that you're my online neighbor.
