No Longer Strangers
Until COVID changed everything, our youngest child’s greatest annoyance was when neighbours would ask her, “Where is your mother?”, usually while side-eyeing my husband, trying to his establish his status – widowed, or perhaps divorced? Sure, I had missed the last three end-of-year street parties due to my work travel, and since we no longer have a dog, I don’t even get those random dog-walking encounters. The fact that I usually tear through the front gate to my car like a stormtrooper, throwing off don’t-interrupt-me vibes, doesn’t help.
But according to a national survey by property developer Stockland, COVID has given many of us the opportunity to get to know our neighbours better. Almost half of us (43 per cent) now have regular conversations with them – and we like it. Connection has become an antidote to COVID anxiety. I know that nowadays I wish to remain firmly and forever attached to my own little “new” neighbourhood kindred and never let go.
Ironically, the first time I met my next-door neighbour was at work, when she came to a sale I was hosting. Shocked that I had never clocked this wonderful woman before, even though she lived right on my street, I realised that my badge of busyness had robbed me of so many good things.
Not all neighbours are a lid to your teapot, of course, but there is a special joy to neighbourhood friends. Unlike your inherited friends, your couple friends or your private friends, a neighbour friend comes from a different place. No history, just geography, ease, enquiry and comfort.
Our weekly coffee dates as a couple expanded to group dates and our local cafe has now allocated us our own table. Getting to know my new little group of four – swelling out to five or six depending on availability – can be the highlight of my week. There is such a tapestry of great conversation to be enjoyed.
Since the lockdown back in March – when one neighbour delighted me with violin serenades from his place – we have found new ways to get together. We recently had a progressive dinner party – canapés at one neighbours’, dinner at a second neighbours’, dessert at mine. I am hosting a baby shower for another neighbour soon – just seven of us in my backyard – and I get the feeling the best is yet to come. The joy of getting to know others who aren’t linked to any other part of your life can be a real gift.
The Stockland research says that three out of four of us are rethinking the kind of home and neighbourhood we want to live in. But thanks to my neighbours, I am the one out of four who doesn’t ever want to move.
Words_ Megan Morton
Photos_ Catherine Cordasco/UnSplash