It's spring, and my townhouse complex is coming alive. The people of this 100-unit, middle-class neighborhood are emerging like creatures from hibernation, revealing winter-whitened skin to the sun and familiar faces to one another. Instead of dashing from condos to cars, offering a hurried wave and a quick hello, people now linger at the community mailbox to talk to one another. We sit on our front patios, reading books, drinking wine, finishing home projects, ready and willing to drop all for the neighbor who pauses to offer a friendly greeting.

The longer days warm personalities and bodies both.

But it's not all sunshine and flowers. Neighborly conflicts and soap-opera variety dramas frozen by fall take fresh root in the spring.

There's Sharon and Diane, who both live directly across from me and who aren't speaking to one another. Both confide in me about the other, even as I consider both of them friends. I feel inextricably guilty when one sees me talking to the other.

There's Kris, who lives six inches and one wall removed from me but with whom I've only ever exchanged weather-related pleasantries. I know she likes country music, and vaccuums every Saturday morning. I've heard her having sex more times than I can count. I wish I could tell her how grateful I am she moved her bed, but I can't think of a tactful way to bring it up. All that, but I don't know what she does for a living. I'm not even sure Kris is her name; another neighbor told me it was.

Kris' car parks to the right of mine, Jeff's to the left.

Like Kris, Jeff and I only talk over the tops of our cars, and only as we're leaving or returning from somewhere else. He's boyish and radiates kindness and optimism. He's psychology teacher at a military base who dates often but inconsistently. Jeff's the kind of guy to whom I'm not romantically attracted, but who I'd nevertheless like to know better. There's a potentially great friendship here that given our odd schedules and busy lives likely will never develop. It seems a shame.

There's the guy who lives behind me with the aging Brittney spaniel. I've dubbed him Wilson because I know him only from the waist down. Each morning and evening, he escorts his dog outside, and stands, plastic bag in hand, waiting for it to do its duty. Sometimes he mutters something unintelligible. He cleans up after his dog, and disappears back into his home. I can tell by the way he moves, and the completely unfashionable pants he wears that he's older. But if I've ever seen him in the parking lot or on the sidewalk, I don't know it's him.

There's my friend Tom, who's tried to set me up with a couple of his friends, and who briefly dated my friend Abby. Although we all know the two dated - I heard them kissing outside my bedroom window one warm, summer night last year - he's never spoken to me about it once. And because he's silent, I've never had the guts to ask.

Across the street from me is Eric, a late 50s, perhaps early 60s, highly intelligent, single man. Eric is friendly, laid back and lonely. I like him, and enjoy his company, despite the fact that during a strange, mid-winter conversation, he told me - with a hand on my knee - he was the "kindest, gentlest, most sexually passionate man" I'd ever meet. I kindly asked him to leave, expecting an apology and embarrassment from him when next we met. It never came, and we resumed our neighborly relationship as though nothing ever happened.

A few doors down is DeeDee, a co-worker of mine who stopped speaking to me last fall when I handled a difficult personal situation of my own in a way of which she did not approve. We sit three seats apart, live 10 townhouses away from one another, and once seemed like close friends. If she must look at me at all, she gives me a cold, hard stare. When I drive by as she's walking her cat on a leash (perhaps control issues, me thinks), she turns her back. She hasn't spoken a monosyllable to me in more than seven months. This is fairly typical of the people in my office. Which gives you just enough of an idea to understand why I want out so badly.

Then there are the pool ladies. A half dozen of late 40s to mid 50s single women who spend seemingly every summer weekend lounging by the pool. I see them only during pool season, though the friendship they share carries through the four seasons. They are tanned beyond any healthful measure, boisterous and ribald. They tease one another mercilessly, often with inside jokes. They sit four to five in a row, cocktails in hand, laughing, drinking, only very occasionally dipping their polished toenails into the pool.

The pool ladies appear to be a clique, but they are not. They are the complex's summer social core, calling out your name as though you're a long-lost friend when you show up poolside, offering a cocktail, throwing out personal questions that somehow don't seem invasive in the least. They gossip about the other residents and when you leave, you can be sure they're talking about you, too. Somehow, it doesn't matter. Their gossip has the feel not of maliciousness, but happy curiosity, as though these tidbits give their days delicious flavor.

The pool opens in two weeks, and summer will take off, at a too-fast gallop that will leave me still longing for more at its end.

Maybe this year, Diane and Sharon will mend fences, Kris and Jeff both will stop by for a summer evening drink, and Tom will have a few too many drinks and spill the beans about Abby. Perhaps Eric will get a girlfriend. If the summer is really golden, DeeDee will get the job she wants in a nearby city and move the hell away. And the office will burn to the ground.

Likely all fantastical thinking. The one thing I can count on is that the pool ladies, who've become symbols of summer to me, will be back. I really can't wait to see them again.