The nearly full moon is climbing behind me overhead. Peeking her way up into the sky. I will be awake long enough to watch her traverse her way in front of me. Before she sneaks her way down into the ever-faithful dawn.
Under this active moon, I consider probably putting a little thank you note in the mailbox of the neighbor who lives across my yard, across the street, and across his yard whom I’ve never met. He and his wife moved into a home that was larger than it is now, prior to having the two kids they have now in it.
How do I know this? Proximity.
The closeness of these unmet neighbors has me seeing things.
These unmet neighbors, with the husband who today, bald-ish, with super chunky headphones over his ears and weed whacker in his hands at around 9 AM (and thank God I didn’t go out dancing the night before because I would have gotten home, and to sleep, only three hours earlier and the noise of the weed whacker would’ve driven me mad but, anyway…) was now down across his yard and over across the street, teetering upon my yard’s curb to tackle and wack the weeds I care nothing about because I never look at them. But he apparently sees them and likes them nicely trimmed up.
Even with our closeness, we see different things.
Our proximity is what has me seeing their lives changing. My son met this husband once. He was nice, my son reported. And, this morning, he nicely weed-whacked around a corner of my house. A corner of my house that I haven’t seen in maybe two years. The corner butts up against a dead-end street I have no reason to be on because I know none of those neighbors either, and frankly, everything on the street is ugly. I guess it is honest to admit my corner plays a part in this blight of sight, even kicking off the ugly if you’re turning onto it driving in off the main road. I just don’t care what the other side of my fence and that street look like because I don’t look at any of it. And maybe it’s better for me to have the corner humbly match the rest of the street rather than me making it pretentiously cleaned.
Thank you, some wife’s husband, for whacking weeds off on one of my property’s corners. If I reach out with a thank you note in the mailbox, we’ll do something we’ve never done before, which is, meet.
I like it here, in the unmet of all of us. I’m sure they are lovely people, this husband, wife, and children. Heck, we might like the same music or realize we’re related, but that’s not enough to want to break the spell of our unmet.
Within my fence, everything is to my liking. Beyond my fence, anyone is free to do what they will. Whack weeds. Whack on. Whack off. Whatever. Why can’t this country act this way? I’ll do me, and you’ll do you, boo. Easy peasy. But, sigh. This country isn’t like our world.
Our world?
You know. The place we go when we are doing the things that make us forget the “real” world exists. The worlds of our making, untaxed by the IRS.
Within my fence, I am free to not leave the thank you note and blow off my cover of anonymity.
Outside my fence, the husband is free to whack my weeds and make the corner he sees more to his tidy liking.
Coexisting, we are with nothing in our ways beyond our two yards and one street.
Or should the thank you note be an apology for keeping my weeds wild and freely growing? No, no, an apology would be all wrong for something that doesn't bother me and because if there weren’t a world where the town built roads and collected taxes, and Joneses were there to keep up with, this would be wild woods and if we were lucky we’d be living in cabins, not proper houses with lawns the Joneses manicured.
There have been several moons since I sat down to write the above. Tonight, I am under clouds and not under the moon but alongside, for the second night of their season, the peepers that are peeping in the pond at the end corner of the main road, just down the street too hilly, treelined, race car laden potentially with drivers texting or searching for a song on Spotify, and too sidewalk-less to stroll to. So close, but safety (or fear) makes it so far away. It is a pond I drive by to and from home. The wild of its water ebbing, or not, based on the moon and rain. Like my neighbor, we remain anonymous and unacquainted.
The pond and the peepers do their thing without care of me.
I and my computer do our thing with wonder of everything.
Each of us in our own spaces, considering the other, or not.
No. No note will be written because this is it.
Love how you think in this piece!