Monday, June 25, 2007
This is the afternoon of the first full day in our new home.
The sulky one is my kid, annoyed with me for capturing the moment. Three of them are triplets, who live next door, another their little brother and the other two a couple of sisters from further down Peacock Drive.
This, 24 hours after we moved in, is the life I envisioned for my son.
Joining this neighborhood has so far been surreal. The neighbors are almost comically friendly, the dramas among them that I already am beginning to discover are textbook soap opera stuff.
"You'll love them," said Pam, the only other single woman on the street, who flagged down Robby and I this evening as we rode by - he on his electric scooter, me on my bike. "Then you'll get to know them too well, and you'll wish you could get away from them. Then, you'll feel blessed to have them. Then, ya know, over and over. Mostly, you'll feel blessed."
Robby and I never finished our planned race from one end of the street to the other. A trio of teenagers were playing softball in the middle section of it. Just beyond that, a woman whose name I did not remember called out, "Hi Jane!" On our way back, Pam stopped us again and when I told her I was searching for a washer and dryer, she led me across the street to Faith and Pat's house. There, inside the garage, waiting for a buyer, was a washer and dryer, a trundle bed perfect for the guest room for which I have no furniture, a badly needed dresser and Pat, who volunteered to bring it all down and set it up for me. For $275, I have added some of serious missing pieces to our home.
Surreal. Like I said.
It began Saturday, when we took a break from unpacking to introduce ourselves to the neighbors closest, the parents of the triplets. "Hey, a bunch of the neighbors are having a kick-off to summer picnic a few doors down. "Come on down and you'll meet half the street," said Suzanne.
Robby and I found the party with no trouble. In a driveway about eight houses down, a dozen people sat in lawn chairs, most with cans of beer in their hands, some focused on plates piled high with hot dogs, chicken, pasta salad and watermelon.
Suzanne immediately brought us into the fold. "These are the new neighbors," she said.
A dozen smiles turned toward us. Introductions flew fast and furious. "Mike is with Terri, Eileen and Todd go together," the names and connections blurred in my mind. "Oh, and this is Mike and Terri's dog Ladybug. And the blonde boy, he's June and Bob's; that's Mikey. The tall one, he's Kaleb." On and on it went.
Children ranging in size from knee high to six feet swarmed in and out of the driveway, adults and kids flowing from the front of the house, through the garage, into a mysteriously hidden back yard.
Robby and I found paper plates. Someone handed me a beer, and him a juice box. We sat in folding chairs, watching more than talking.
"Hey," a woman called out. "Sue's here!"
A middle aged woman in a battery-powered wheelchair rolled up the driveway. The entire crew erupted in cheers.
"Sue has MS," Suzanne explained. "She's been in the hospital for the last month."
Women rushed to hug and kiss Sue. "Sorry I didn't come by to see you in the hospital this morning," Diana said. "But now I don't have to. I can see you here!"
Another couple walked up the driveway, the woman carrying a pan of cream-cheese-stuffed green peppers. "Hi neighbor!" one of the men shouted in greeting. "Hey there, neighbor!" the other man volleyed back. Several other people joined in, laughing and tossing "hi neighbors" back and forth among them.
While they "hi-neighbored" themselves silly, I turned to Robby.
"Who wrote this script?" I asked. Robby laughed and nodded, and I grinned even wider at the realization that he understood exactly what I had meant.
Person after person approached us to say hello. Their words were almost identical.
"You couldn't have picked a better neighborhood," they said.
Eventually, we discovered who owned the house in whose driveway we sat.
"Welcome to the Peacock Bar and Grill!" said Todd, the tall, black-haired patriarch. "We're open for the season! See," he said, pointing around a bend in the sidewalk. "We've even got an 'open' sign." And there it was, just outside their front door.
Robby, who hung back with me for the first hour, soon vanished from my side with the boy who lives next door to us. Together, they ran back home to get their bikes. I saw Robby later, surrounded by a pack of neighborhood boys.
"That's the way it goes around here," Suzanne said.
I nodded and turned my head farther than necessary to look. I didn't want her to see the happy tears in my eyes.
Several times that evening, I turned my head in just that way. And several times again yesterday, when children ran our doorbell on a regular basis and flowed comfortably from room to room with Robby. They gathered around the table to play Life. Later, they lolled on the living room floor and took turns playing with Robby's Wii system.
By afternoon's end, I thought I would cry for another reason. Almost all our apple juice, orange juice, a bottle of Coke we'd received as part of a housewarming gift, four puddings and several pieces of cold chicken I'd planned on as dinner were gone. I was overwhelmed, completely unprepared for so many children. Robby and I both breathed a sigh of relief when our house finally became ours again.
Just why, I wondered, did we both feel so undone? Looking back, I realize that we have had six years of relative solitude, just he and I alone in homes too far removed from regular gangs of children. This will be a dramatic adjustment for us both. But it is one I am confident we will happily make.
Saturday night, we were the first to leave the party. We wandered back down our new street, Robby riding slowly next to me on his bike, the same bike that has sat unused for the last year in the closet of our third-story apartment.
"What do you think?" I asked him.
"I think this'll be good," he said, unable to suppress a grin.
"Sometimes," I said, "it takes a while to get where you belong, doesn't it?"
He nodded and at his next words, had it not been such a dark night, I would have turned my head again. "This," he said, "is where we belong."
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1 comment:
Wow, I'm so thrilled for you guys. I can feel your happiness and you're blessed.
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