I´ve lived in my current apartment for two months and I don´t know my neighbours. It´s supposed to be normal these days: people are scared of strangers, no sense of community whatsoever and everyone minds their own business. But when I moved in I was told that many people here know each other and they even organize BBQs in summer time. Getting to peak into your neighbours´ shady apartments filled with black and white photographs sounds like a French movie but I didn´t expect any less.
Remember the time a couple of weeks back when it snowed probably more than is legal? Now that I live in a flat with my very own entrance I have to keep the porch clean. I consider the porch mine even thought I share it with a couple who live above me. They´re just not that into sweeping.
Anyway, the other day when my steps were covered with thick and heavy snow and since I don´t own a shovel I was trying to clear them with a broom. Suddenly a neighbour that I call Sourpuss comes out and sees me sweeping desperately. He greets and offers to borrow his shovel which is standing in the snow by his porch. I thank and grab the shovel gratefully. Atleast someone cares about his neighbours!
I see Sourpuss relatively often because he´s outside every second hour. He wears a blunt expression on his face and one of those hats that are like a mix of a beanie and a cap. He looks like an over-grown teenage boy. It looks like Sourpuss thinks he´s a caretaker; he likes to clear snow off the yard even though there´s a tractor that ploughs everybody´s yards after heavy snowfall. He sprinkles rocks around when it´s icy. He walks across the yard to get firewood. I would be invited to sit by that cosy fireplace if he wasn´t that sour.
Other neighbours I´ve met only very briefly and no one has ever initiated a real chat. I was hoping they would so I didn´t have to. They would ring my doorbell and bring me apple pie, just like in the movies, and offer to lend things over coffee. No one has come but people always say hello if I meet them outside. There´s a man on my left side who, according to my landlord, is called Policeman. He´s the only one with whom I exchanged a few words which makes him a nice policeman.
It snows more and my next-door neighbours still choose to sit on their asses and watch tv. Snow piles up in front of my porch but I can´t bring myself to borrow Sourpuss´s shovel again. I know that he wants me to. It´s right there, two meters from my porch, available and innocent, a symbol of a community of good neighbours who borrow things to each other and have BBQs in summer.
I can´t take the shovel without permission and nor do I dare to ring the doorbell. I´m afraid Sourpuss would say, bluntly: “Of course. It goes without asking that you can borrow the shovel!” And he would think I find it unnatural that all we good neighbours borrow things without being too ceremonial.
Normally I´m interested in people and I like talking to them. I can approach strangers without thinking twice and I can talk about the weather. But whenever I meet neighbours my mouth refuses to form more words than a simple “hi”.
I know what´s the problem (apart from the deep-rooted cultural trait of avoiding neighbours). Neighbours are too close. They might already know things about me and I don´t want them to know more. Don´t all neighbours love gossiping and stalking? Neighbours can easily know too much because you already live in the same building! Walls are thin. I don´t want awkward moments in my very own yard. Maybe I´m just not suited for living in a city.
The weather is getting really warm now and people fear for their lives because snow and ice can suddenly fall from roofs. On my porch, too, there´s a heap of snow and massive blocks of ice. I heard it coming down with a crash earlier today. I felt a cold shiver because I knew that Sourpuss would see the mess and feel sorry for me because he knows I´m too shy to borrow his shovel. If he was friendly enough, he would clear the stairs for me.
He left the shovel right next to my porch. I´m going to borrow it. One day we´ll be good friends and I´ll have to delete this post.
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