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Snow

October 28, 2008 in days, hometown | No comments

We woke up this morning to big, cottony flakes of snow falling on trees that are still shades of red, orange and yellow. So we went to the WNC Farmers Market and bought more apples. Our favorites are Pink Ladies and Cameos (these are Utterlies, I think — as in it’s Utterly ridiculous it’s snowing before Halloween! Speaking of apple names…), which this really nice man and his wife sell in the open sheds behind the fancy stalls with walls and doors and refrigerated cases filled with goats cheese and Amish butter. Oh, Cameo. I know you are not like the old varieties my granddad grafted to the apple trees in their back yard, ones like Early Girl that slip over the tongue like apple syrup. But I love your slightly nubby skin, your crisp bite, your uncertain parentage. I think I would like most anything with those qualities, really.

The gentleman who runs the stall will whip out his pocketknife and cut you off a piece of apple or orange to taste, if you like. He buys them by the box from farmers in Hendersonville, he says. And he’ll keep on slicing the fruit and passing you the little slivers until you taste them all once, twice, three times, even. Then you’ll fill inevitably up your bag, hand him $5 and walk to your car, when he’ll call out, “God bless you.” And even I can’t help but to call back a happy, “You, too!” 

Some neighborly advice

October 27, 2008 in days, hometown | 1 comment

There was a time in my early 20s where I really thought hard about starting a collective, an intentional community. I had graduated from Warren Wilson College (enough said, right?), had moved to Atlanta for my first “job,” had moved back to Asheville to struggle at a minimum-wage job, and stressed out when I spent more than $30 at the grocery store. It was the typical post-liberal arts college depression, the one where I suddenly found that the thing I really grew to detest in undergrad — the constant, constant flow of people everywhere and the utter lack of privacy — had a real flipside. Community. Whether you like it or not.

So it’s probably not a stretch to think that I spent a lot of heavy time with books about creating intentional communities. I’d move to a collective! Where we’d cook together! And talk about progressive politics! I knew what Robert Putnam was talking about in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. So I tried. I planned and went to art meet-ups, group cooking experiments. I hung out with the anarchists. They were terrible.

But this weekend, after I wrote about what makes a good neighbor, I thought about the idea again. At the very least, I could find out how to be a good neighbor, right? I know what I like, but I wondered what others had to say. Eleven million hits on a Google search later, I found some real yawners, ones that made me feel like I was in a Victorian time warp, like you should “welcome new neighbors with an introductory note or a friendly chat,” “visit with someone lonely,” or “when you’re outside make sure to smile and wave at your other neighbors.”

Not to take Seth and Amy’s line, but: Really?!?

So I decided to do my own handy guide to being a good neighbor, based on actual neighbors I have had (though not in my current neighborhood, that’s for sure). It’s not for the faint of heart. Here goes:

Don’t:

  1. Don’t look your neighbors in the eye when they see you taking your hand gun from your car into your house.
  2. Don’t leave piled-up deer carcasses in your carport for weeks on end after your grandkids go deer hunting.
  3. Don’t drive 5 miles per hour up your one-lane road, even if you have a vintage white Corvette and don’t want to get it dusty.
  4. Don’t scowl at your neighbors after they call the cops on you and take you to court.
  5. Don’t ignore the man leaning up against your apartment building who is passed out drunk. Make sure he’s breathing, OK?

Do:

  1. Warn your neighbors when a very, very large bear starts chasing the neighborhood dogs and pulling bee hives out into the woods.
  2. Have lots of cheap beer, lawn chairs and buckets of fireworks available for impromptu July 4 celebrations.
  3. When the cows break through the fence, call and wake up your neighbors then offer to repair the fence, even though it’s the middle of the night.
  4. When you reach your 90s, wear green jeans every day and give passers-by the double thumbs up and a tip of the hat.
  5. When your architect breaks up your marriage, laminate posters decked out with slogans like, “Home designer? Home breaker!” Put the posters all along the road in your neighborhood.
  6. Remember: Keep an open mind. Neighbors can be kooky, but that, of course, is a lot of fun, too. Because, really, who knows what stories they’re all telling about you? 

Hello, neighbor

October 25, 2008 in hometown, inspired, people | No comments

This morning, like most, I walked down the porch steps and headed up our street. Our dog, Sammy, comes with me, of course. Today, while he reacquainted himself plots of grass and the other neighborhood dogs, I thought about how it has been a year or so since we moved into our house in West Asheville, since we left the the Swannanoa mountainside and the one-lane gravel road.

When Pat started building this house, we didn’t think we would really move here. We loved our house in Swannanoa and we had dreams of selling this one and going around the world: Thailand and Vietnam, maybe a stop in Spain. But things changed. The housing market slowed down and as the months ticked by, we started counting our pennies. One weekend, we called up our friend Jack to ask if he wanted to buy our Swannanoa house. (What’s the saying I want to put here? A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush?) After the phone call, we started packing.

A year later — even though there are boxes I still haven’t unpacked cluttering the basement and I sometime wake up and think we’re in our other house — I realize that I love this neighborhood. It didn’t take long, this growing love, to settle on me. I even admitted as much in my contributor’s bio for the latest issue of WNC Magazine, wherein I am quoted saying that I live on the best street in West Asheville. And NO ONE called me out on it, so it must be true!

But what I’ve also been reminded of over these last 12 months is what it is to be a Good Neighbor. That’s where Ginger comes in. She’s a little shy.

 

Not really. Ginger has got to be one of the least shy people you’ll ever meet, which is why I find this photo hilarious.

Let me introduce you to her, because she was one of the first neighbors to introduce herself to us. That was just the beginning. She has helped friends buy and move into houses along our street. She organizes a monthly poker game and always sends me an invitation. She planted rows of tomatoes, peppers and squash, which becomes a community garden because she lets anyone come and pick them if they want. Her fenced-in backyard is frequently populated with groups of dogs, both her own and ones she’s taking care of. When someone moved away this year and left a starving, sick cat behind, she adopted it and named it Sweetie. She worries over some neighborhood kids and takes care of others when their parents need to take a sudden trip to the ER. She cuddles the babies. She also always stops to talk when she sees you outside and always, always has nice compliments to offer and helps out in crises and celebrations.

(Wow, I was impressed before, but just writing this makes me feel like a self centered, undependable shut-in.)

She is unfailingly, absolutely unique. I’m so thankful for her! She has, whether she knows it or not, helped make my feelings of homesickness — both for my old house and that old romantic idea of home and community — dissipate, even as dust still collects on those moving boxes I’ve yet to unpack.

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