Great neighbourhoods

Yesterday afternoon, a chance encounter with a neighbour quickly coalesced into the notion of a community cookout. Two hours later, five long tables, set up across two front yards, were groaning with salads, delicious main courses, meats, fish, pasta, breads, wine, and cookies. About 20 adults sat eating in the breezy sunshine, while at least as many children ran, biked, scootered, and wagoned up and down the sidewalk, grabbing an occasional bite (and a stealthy gulp of beer from time to time). Nobody was quite sure how it happened so quickly, successfully, and happily. There was no prime organizer, no plan, no marketing, no permits from the city, no committee. We all just fell down a jolly little non-linearity into a chaos of delight and then, some time later, when the sun went down and the wind picked up, cleaned everything up just as quickly and went back to the regular Sunday bathtime and school prep routine.

I drove my 20 year old daughter home. She sat beside me, splayed out in stomach full pleasure and relaxed idleness.

"That was fun." was all she said.
"What causes stuff like that?" I asked.
"Just a great neighbourhood," she replied.

In my work, my writing, my thoughts, I talk about things like the width of a street, the proximity of house to sidewalk, the syntax of movement and lingering. But can such things alone hold such power? At times, it's hard not to believe there's some prepotent force beyond the shape of grass and asphalt, transcending time, gluing us all together like a small band of intrepid sailors in a boundless sea of broken promises, battered dreams, harbingers of doom. It makes it a little harder not to have hope. It made it much easier to come to work today.