I spent the bulk of the light part of the day, today (make that yesterday, officially), shoveling snow.
    Aside from being difficult and invigorating, it brought me in closer touch with one of my neighbors to my southwest, across the street. The neighbor and I have occasionally, over the years, greeted one another and exchanged a few words when simultaneously collecting our mail. Our front windows afford a direct view of the front of her house, her property and her carport. Mom and I spent a fair amount of time noticing when she was out (and, when she wasn't), commenting on her company and the presence of maintenance vehicles, discussing the landscaping improvements she applied to her property, trying to remember what her name was...typical front porch stuff but, since we weren't on a front porch but behind walls, I rarely interacted with her, my mother only once when she was walkering our driveway and our neighbor was retrieving her mail (her mailbox is on our side of the street). On the few occasions when our neighbor and I ran into each other we exchanged names, although, from meeting to meeting we never remembered the other's name. She had noticed Mom and knew that we lived together and that I cared for her. One visit occurred because we both noticed we'd gotten other people's mail, we met in the middle (so to speak) while checking for the appropriate houses then, when neither of us found anyone home to receive misdelivered mail, discussed the advisability of slipping mail into the correct mailbox. We decided against it because, as she pointed out, it is against the law to tamper with anyone's mailbox.
    Today while I was in the middle of shoveling my extremely long driveway, we met again as our mail deliverer worked her truck through the slush left by the snow plow along the sides of our street. She, the mail lady and I conversed for a fair amount of time. I realized that I hadn't gotten a chance to let either know that Mom had died and I knew they would both be interested. I thought I would be okay relating this information but found myself choking up as I informed them. Both were sympathetic and comforting.
    After the mail lady headed up the street, my across-the-street neighbor and I continued chatting about the amazing two and a half day snow storm we'd just had, the difficulties of delivering mail in this part of town (the mail lady told us that she'd gone through three sets of chains, yesterday) how clear and bright it was today, how we both hoped the sun, if nothing else, would clear most of this overwhelming batch of snow away before our next predicted snowfall, this Saturday, and how beneficial it is to shovel snow off one's driveway before another snowfall. She had, as well, been watching the serial spin-outs two nights ago occurring between both of our houses and we laughed about some of the antics some of the drivers tried to get themselves further up the hill before finally giving up and swirling into my driveway.
    In due time I went back to my shoveling and she returned to her home. She has a shorter, steeper driveway than mine and owns an old Toyota Corolla that, I knew, would falter on the level of snow blanketing her driveway if she needed to get anywhere. Although, overtly, she appears determined and physically able, there is something frail about her. I considered that she might appreciate having her driveway shoveled, in case she wanted to make a supply trip or two before our next snowstorm. I speared my snow shovel upright in a snow bank and turned to head across the street to her house to ask her. She was heading across the street toward me.
    "You said you're strong, is that right?" she asked pumping her arms at the elbow, Popeye style.
    "Yes. Taking care of my Mom really developed my strength."
    "Could I hire you to shovel my driveway?"
    I laughed. "I was just headed over there to ask you if you wanted me to shovel your driveway."
    I surveyed her driveway, determined that it would take about a half hour to clear and started to work. She stayed outside, bundled up in a lawn chair. We chatted as I worked.
    She has a disability, one of those that isn't apparent on the surface but affects her joints and makes it difficult for her to do strenuous work, spend much time sitting in a car, etc. She is having groceries delivered tomorrow and was concerned that her delivery guy wouldn't be able to make it up her driveway, thus would give up before completing the delivery. "I tried to clear some of my driveway yesterday," she said, "but I wasn't able to do much."
    I'd seen her out there, yesterday, when I got the "bright" idea of attempting to clear my own driveway using my truck, which didn't work...I foundered the truck in a snowbank on my front lawn when I was attempting a turn to "shovel" up the drive. She had been so bundled up when she was working on her driveway, and, as well, was using a digging shovel rather than a snow shovel, that I thought one of our common neighbors had been working on her driveway.
    No, she confirmed, it had been her, and, she admitted, she hadn't done a very good job. She was amazed that it had occurred to me that she might need help. "You didn't know that I'm disabled, did you?"
    "No, I had no idea; but, since I thought someone else was working on your driveway, yesterday, I figured that clearing it was, well, not something you were prepared to do."
    During the rest of the time we talked about all kinds of things: The new president; she's a long time immigrant from Europe so we compared notes about what it's like to learn to live in the states when one is a young adult; we compared notes on the commonality of owning Toyotas and having people knock at our doors asking if our cars are for sale; the importance of being bilingual; how beautiful our area of Prescott is; how wonderful it is to live in an "old style" neighborhood.
    When I finished her driveway she again mentioned payment.
    Without thinking, I heard myself say, "You don't need to pay me. This is the neighborly thing to do. You know, for years, because I was so involved with my mom, I haven't been able to be very neighborly. Now that I can, I think it's time I started."
    As I walked back to continue working on my driveway I realized, yeah, that's right! During those years when I wasn't able to exchange neighborly favors Mom and I were, even so, the recipients of some wonderful acts of neighborliness. During years when I couldn't get to yard maintenance, my neighbor to the east, when he was weed-eating his own yard, would work his way through the eastern front of our yard. There were times when I'd put the garbage out on Tuesday night and before it was picked up the next day some health crisis would occur and Mom and I would head down to Phoenix. When we returned a few days later, some one or more of our neighbors would have pushed our emptied bins to our carport and piled our newspapers on our stoop. Our neighbor to the west, the gardener, before she died and her companion, who has no interest in gardening, fallowed out her plots, would keep us supplied with sweet, vine ripened tomatoes and spicy arugula for salads. One of our neighbors two houses down, when my mother was still driving, happened to be out one day when my mother slammed the back driver's side fender into our retaining posts while trying to back the car into our driveway. He sprinted over with a mallet and popped the dent out of the fender.
    We've never been chummy with our neighbors, here, but neighborliness in this part of the country has a distinctively independent Western edge...one with which I am, and my mother was, very comfortable. You keep a casual eye turned toward your neighbors, allow them to live in your thoughts as they do across the way, on the other side of the boulders, behind that stand of Ponderosa. If you notice they need a hand and if your hand is available, you offer it.
    I'm a little sad thinking that it is my mother's death that is allowing my hands to be more available to my neighbors, but I'm excited, too. My mother was a neighborly soul. It is from her I learned that when returning a borrowed or left-behind dish, you always return it full of something good. When we noticed that our front yard was a great place for turning around on this narrow, climbing street, we made sure all obstructions to this were pushed back. We watched with pleasure during the spring, summer and fall as walkers and cyclists stopped to rest beneath the shade of our indigenous, fast growing perfectly situated deciduous tree. We were delighted and intrigued when dog walkers lingered in our yard. We often devised subtle landscaping plans that would render our yard more inviting: A vine covered arbor close to the street for more shade; some weather proof chairs for older walkers and enough of those so that if Mom was up to it, we could sit outside and people watch; salt licks to encourage more deer visits; a couple of bridges across the wash to encourage access. We didn't get around to any of them while Mom was alive. Her neighborly spirit remains, though, and she taught me well. Now's as good a time as any to extend my hands and our hearts to our neighbors.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 03:04   email  this post