The Eclectic Musings of Ravyncrow

2010-04-20

Up and Down the Driveway

Neighbors can be wonderful.
They can also be annoying, loud, obnoxious and downright horrible.

Generally, I prefer they be non-existent. We have a few like that, actually.

The house next door and one across the street are now uninhabited. Several behind us, up the steep hill, are also empty. There is a wooded lot between us and the next house on one side, and that house was vacant for a long time. It was bought and sold, bought and sold, and finally someone is actually living there now. But, it's buffered by the wooded lot.

Then there's the house that used to be on the corner. It blew up about a year and a half ago and now it's just a bit of concrete in a yard full of violets. Very quiet, those violets.

The rest of the street is a mix of good, bad and indifferent. But those aren't the neighbors I'm going to mention today.

Today I'll mention the neighbor across the street, who I'm just now getting to know after living across from her for oh, about 7 years or so I think.

She
Is
Wonderful.

I can't believe I've gone so long without knowing this lady! Partner would talk to her off and on when he was working in the yard and she was out. I'd met her a few times, but never really talked.

She sort of disappeared for a while last year, and the house was dark. I found out recently that they (she and her adult daughter, who lives there) had had a financial bad spell and had been without electricity, and were cooking food bank food over a fire in the backyard. She is now retired and on Social Security, and her daughter on Disability, so they are fine now, but for a while it was difficult.

And we didn't even know.

Then several months ago we saw an ambulance and heard that her dog had jumped up and caught her off balance, and she'd broken her hip. I asked one of the other neighbors how she was doing a few weeks later and they didn't know.

A few weeks ago I was coming home from somewhere or other and saw her picking up mail at the end of her drive. She was still on a cane. I stopped and asked how she was doing and we chatted a bit. Somewhere in there we decided we'd start walking together since I needed the exercise and she needed to walk to help her recovery as well.
So � since I have a long driveway (we figured out it is about 150' long plus a curved bit) and it's pretty and wooded and all, that we'd build up our stamina by walking �laps� up and down with rests in between.

And that's what we've been doing almost every morning, for nearly two weeks, except for the weekends when I have a craft fair.

We came to the conclusion that we had the same upbringing, raised by the same parents, four years apart and half a continent away.

I can't believe I could have been friends with this woman for years and am just now getting to know her.

This neighbor is one of the wonderful ones.

It's an entirely different feeling, living here and knowing I have a friend right across the street.

I like it.

Walk in Balance
(Up and down the driveway)

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