Interesting Neighbors

"Isn't it splendid to think
of all the things there are to find out about?
It just makes me feel glad to be alive --
It's such an interesting world."

-- L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Two stuffed monkeys, one wind-up monkey and a toy spider 10-6-14

"Discover the fulfillment of intimate relationships
 with flesh-and-blood neighbors ..."

-- Jose Panate-Aceves and John Hayes

We were cleaning up the kitchen after supper last night, when our neighbor Vera called.

My husband had cleaned the dead bugs and cobwebs and shit out of her yard light, and she was calling to thank him.

They chatted on the phone for a minute, and she popped the question.

"Can you come over?"

My husband and Leo trooped over, bearing a brownie fresh from the oven while I stayed behind and finished with the dish-washing and lunch-packing.

Vera loves to visit. She loves nothing more than mixing up strong cocktails and talking.

By the time I wandered over, the drinks were poured and the conversation was flowing.

Like many elderly folks, Vera sometimes repeats herself.

But mostly, she is a delightful story-teller full of interesting and funny tales about her younger days growing up in Massachusetts and her years of sailing adventures with her late husband, Moe.

Vera has multitudinous interesting stories about her multitudinous interesting friends. And it seems like every time we visit, she tells us something new that we've never heard before, all spoken in her charming New England accent.

Like last night. 

She was telling us about the little Episcopal church she attended in the little village she grew up in that happened to be near the prestigious Groton School. She said students from the then all-boys' Episcopal institution taught Sunday school classes to the local children. After one Sunday's lesson, the boy who'd been teaching her class wrote and mailed Vera a letter saying that he thought she was "the nicest girl there."

She remembered his exact formal-sounding name -- Something-something-something the Third. 

"Oh my God, I should have kept it," she said, laughing and knocking back a slug of her second Manhattan on the rocks. "But I didn't. I threw it away."

Vera usually goes to bed very early -- around 7:30 p.m.

But last night she chatted until nearly 9:30. 

Me: "We're keeping you up past your bedtime."

Her: "Oh, I know. It's okay. I'm really enjoying this. I'm so glad you all came over."

With nearly 90 years of an interesting life to tell us about, a visit with Vera is never boring. We love following her meandering segues from one topic to another, seeing where her vivid memory takes us next through the long life of people she's met and places she's been.

"I just love talking to people," she said, grinning. "You all don't say much, but I just love talking."

Keeping It To Myself

"I keep a lot of shit to myself because in reality, nobody gives a fuck."

-- Unknown

Self portrait 9-17-14

"I have torn to pieces my robe of speech,

and have let go of the desire to converse."

--Rumi, 

Hush, Don't Say Anything To God: Passionate Poems of Rumi

I was at the corner store yesterday, headed for the checkout, when I ran into someone I knew.

He's a real chipper, cheerful guy. Nice enough. 

At another time, under other circumstances, I'd have called him a friend. Now? An acquaintance. Just some guy I recognized at the grocery store.

He was all smiles and "Good to see you!"  He reached out and grabbed me and hugged me heartily, right there in the grocery store, my arms straight down at my sides holding onto my celery and bacon, giving no indication that I wanted to be hugged at all.

Was I glad to see him? 

Meh.

Honestly? When he came around the corner I kind of shrank back and scanned for the quickest getaway, like I often do when I run into certain people from from a certain painful chapter of my life. Which he is. This guy didn't personally inflict the pain. But through no fault of his own, he is guilty by association. My mind and my heart automatically lump him in with the rest of it.

And so I went into self-defense mode.

I pulled back. I threw up a shield. I armored up.

After he monologued about himself for a few minutes, he asked me breezily "So what's new with you?"

There was a time when I'd have "shared," as they say, what's happening in my life. I'd have let myself get sucked into a long, time consuming, nowhere conversation. Not because I really wanted this person to know stuff about me, but because I was insecure enough to think I had to impress him, or prove that my life was valid, or important, or good enough or full enough of what I thought he thought it should be good and full of. I'd have confused a superficial, spontaneous, empty exchange with something real.

Not anymore.

I don't waste the energy.

All I said to him was "Nothing. I live a pretty quiet, simple life these days."

He looked a tad befuddled and said "Well, I guess there's value in that, too."

And the conversation was over.

I'd successfully barred the door.

I paid for my celery and bacon and headed home to my very happy, full, valid, good life which I was happier than happy to keep all to myself, lest I dilute its goodness by spilling it out all over the grocery store floor at the feet of someone who acted like he gave a shit, but who very probably forgot all about me the second we parted.

Which is perfectly fine with me.