I second many of the ideas raised below - gardening provides so many opportunities for reciprocity (Would you like some cucumbers? Could you water my plants while I'm gone next week? etc) and just being outside is a huge one, it removes the literal physical barrier of knocking on the door to converse. I also recommend hosting a National Night Out / Night to Unite gathering (happening August 2nd! It's not too late!) and sending holiday cards to everyone on the block, both of these have worked for me. But I really want to answer the last question and tell the story of the nicest thing my next door neighbors have done for me.
Seven years and one month ago I was (heavily, visibly) pregnant with twins. We were delighted and so were our elderly neighbors, who had warmly welcomed us to the block with cinnamon rolls when we moved in about 9 months earlier. My water broke at 34 weeks and off I went to spend a week in the hospital, returning home a week ahead of the two preemie babies that I left behind in the NICU. I hobbled from the car to the house on my husband's arm and I saw our elderly neighbor out watering her plants. I knew she had seen us but I avoided eye contact because I was sad and in pain and just wanted to be home. About 10 minutes later we see her drive away (this was at ~8PM on a Saturday night and she's in her 70s, this was atypical behavior) About an hour later she knocks on our door. I go to hide out in the bedroom (see above re: sad and in pain, I was not prepared for company) and ask my husband to answer the door. When she leaves I come out to see a basket on the table; a card, some gift cards to local restaurants for takeout dinners, and, most amazingly, 4 pints of perfectly ripe, absolutely heavenly July raspberries. After a week of hospital food I ate a dish of vanilla ice cream topped with those raspberries and I will never forget how they tasted or how loved I felt. I've thanked her and her husband many times since then, but that's a gift that I want remembered :-)
When my neighbor's dryer broke, she asked me if she could borrow a drying rack. I said yes, and feel free to bring your clothes over here to use our dryer if you want. I repeated the offer and she finally took me up on it after the new dryer delivery was delayed. (She has five kids and that's a lot of socks!) She thanked me, but I thanked her because I told her the fact that she used our dryer makes it easier for me to ask when I need something. Sometimes asking for help is as important as offering it.
I recommend gardening for being visibly available! I chat with my retired neighbor mostly about gardening because that's what we're both doing when we see each other. When we're traveling, I sometimes ask him to water my garden. It's an easy way to help each other out when you don't know each other very well, because you don't need to give out your house key.
We don't have much of a front porch, so we just got some lawn chairs. Lately I've been spending a lot of time sitting in the front yard reading while my toddler drinks from the sprinkler and points out all the babies and doggies that pass by.
Jul 30, 2022·edited Jul 30, 2022Liked by Leah Libresco Sargeant
I'm part of a loose neighborhood intentional community in Norwood Ohio (Cincinnati adjacent). It started with a Vineyard church plant and then people inviting friends to move to the neighborhood. This worked well because it's a former gm town and until recently houses were very cheap. People might not have been willing to move into a neighborhood with broken streets and abandoned buildings on their own but it made sense with an invitation and lots of others already there. So I think starting a knit together neighborhood feel with a core of people who share values has made this work in a unique way. From there we've gotten to know the existing "old neighbors" and also gotten involved in local government. Some highlights include meal trains for new babies or life crises, shared yards and yard work and yard tools, passing a mural ordinance, childcare co ops, starting a Montessori school, a pay as you can cafe, a csa with food grown on vacant lots, and the Catholic worker homeless shelter. we also used to have a lovely though labor intensive pay as you can pizza night on the vineyard church patio. Less labor intensive has been pick up wiffle ball games and backyard fires and seasonal celebrations like a set place for the pre Halloween trick or treating gathering and the new years party.
Some of the hardest parts have been a couple of divorces and moves... Also hard has been the recent real estate inflation, which incentivized selling and brought a really different crew of folks into the neighborhood :(
I'd say deeper neighborhood community has worked because we share dependency including child care, support each other's ventures economically, and loosely have committed to stay, albeit without any written covenant, but mostly via home ownership and check ins with each other. Some have even moved away, realized what they are missing, and come back! Some of the most significant fruit right now of commitment and knowing each other deeply is a very tight knit group of young teenagers who've all known each other since they were born!
Jul 27, 2022·edited Jul 27, 2022Liked by Leah Libresco Sargeant
Like other commenters here, I would previously have said that college (and, for me, several years in an intentional service community) were the high points of community/collaboration for me. But then I became very sick last year and had to start asking for help. Lots of people stepped up and it has truly changed my relationship to local community. A few things I've learned and will try to retain as habits even now that I'm better:
- scheduling walks. I set up a walking schedule with friends (weather permitting) to help me stay active during the worst of everything. Now, I've gotten much more intentional about scheduling walks and I reach out to people I don't know as well with requests like, "I know you've thought a lot about X or your family is really intentional about Y, I'd love to take a walk and hear more about that." And, of course, we often talk about more than X or Y but its a good start.
- making extra food to deliver. We did set up a meal train and some friends used that as a way to express support. But for other families, that kind of planning was not their jam (totally fine). One family, in particular, would every now and then just make an extra quiche (along with their own dinner) and then run it over to us. Quiches, casseroles, chilis and other items that can be frozen and stored are great for this. I think it began because we remarked at a potluck, one time, how much we liked their quiche and they ran with it. Now, we're trying to do the same.
- signature family event. My family holds an annual open house. It gives us a chance to open our home to neighbors and acquaintances we don't yet know well. This has been an especially great way to meet parents of our kids' classmates. And somehow, saying, hey we do this every year, we'd love to have you join us helps break the ice. By hosting this just once a year (and, frankly, in much the same way every year), we can make a big lift of an event fairly manageable.
What out-of-the-ordinary outreach has someone in your community offered? The sister of a woman in my neighborhood offered me 30 sessions of neurofeedback pro-bono when her sister told me that I'd suffered a concussion/mild traumatic brain injury in a car accident (in which I also broke my back and ribs). I was a single mom of a 12-year-old at the time. I had a ton of community support, but this one probably takes the cake.
My wife has found the local Buy Nothing group useful for practical giving and receiving, although we haven't developed deep relationships from it. I'm in the local Nextdoor group, but perhaps that would be a stronger and more positive mechanism if it were divided further in to areas of several blocks. What I find most difficult is when people in the neighborhood don't seem open to engaging in conversation; when I experience rejection I am less likely to try talking to them again and am a bit nervous with others as well.
Like other commenters, being in college was the best community of care I ever lived in. I lived in a sorority-style house with 35 other women and we shared community chores for the house and cooked communal meals every night. While I wouldn't want to live in quite such close quarters as an adult--I like having my own kitchen now!--I miss the extent to which everyone checked in on me when I was sick, overworked, having relationship troubles, you name it. And I miss knowing such a large number of people on a non-superficial level; most of my current friendships just don't have the depth you get from having dinner with the same people every night.
Similarly to other commenters, I'm part of my local Buy Nothing group, and I'm currently in the process of becoming one of its admins. Becoming an admin was not exactly my first choice, but I stepped up because I want the group to continue to exist. I hope it will help me build more connections in my current neighborhood, and perhaps allow me to facilitate that for others too.
I found my best community of care in college. There were a couple of us girls who got very close, partly through living in the same dorm and mostly through meeting every night to pray for each other. We were roommates or suitemates for all four years and taking care of each other just became a normal thing. One of us was involved in theater; during tech weeks, she'd often text our group chat to ask someone to bring her a sandwich for dinner and one of us would do it. When I caught the flu and had to quarantine, I never had to worry about who would bring me food. One time, one of us got sick to her stomach in the middle of the night and rather than bother an RA, we suitemates pitched in to clean it up (and honestly thought nothing of it). And we were consistently praying for each others' concerns, small or big. It's the first time I'd ever been part of a group of friends like that, and it was/is incredibly precious to me. Moving further away from them (we're still in touch, but practical ways of caring aren't as much of an option) has been one of the toughest parts of the last few years since graduating.
I really haven't gotten to know my current neighbors' needs at all, nor (to be honest) have I tried very hard. But then, living in an apartment complex means neighbors are comparatively transient, so I'm prepared to believe that living in a neighborhood might change that dynamic. I'm very jealous of that WhatsApp group, though -- that's a genius idea and I can see how trading small requests/tips/favors would make it so much easier to build relationships.
I love this notion that small and casual requests are what build connections. You're spurring me on to consider how I need to grow in my own neighborliness!
> Have you read Playborhood? It's full of delightful ways to engage neighbors in creating a space where kids can roam (and where neighbors know one another in more playful ways).
> Tearing up your front lawn! As Mary mentioned, gardening is a great way to connect with neighbors. For me, tearing up the yard, planting flowers and herbs and apple trees and adding a raised bed has been a boon for getting to know neighbors.
> Second the buy nothing group from Skylar! One neighbor bakes a ton of challah every Friday and offers it to others, and then follows up about joining her for shabbat. I can see you doing something similar :)
> Every Saturday in Australia there are hundreds of 'Fun Runs' - 5k running events organized entirely by volunteers. You can start a volunteer organization doing the same, or organizing a weekly or monthly weeding of a community garden, or a monthly playdate for parents with kids under 5. Creating a structured activity that involves some but not extensive planning in a public place is great. Bonus points if you create something that has bylaws and a democratic structure.
I've found that being an overwhelmed mom can get in the way of being neighborly. We've lived in our current place since 2019, when I had a pregnancy terrible for my lungs -- and of course right after that there was COVID.
Our neighbors are nice, and I've planned to return favors and give gifts. Mostly, this has worked out, but getting things done in a timely fashion is still hard. This year, I was late on packing the Christmas gifts I had planned. Arranging stuff with our own landlord, getting the kids to family Christmas, then a furnace that conked out in January, downed lines in February... It was March before I left the gifts on on my neighbors' doorsteps.
One neighbor got their gift just fine. The other neighbors were apparently out of town when I left the gift, and while there was nothing in the gift that couldn't sit a few days, I hadn't secured the package well and squirrels got into it. Those neighbors returned home to a soiled, mussed package that to them, looked like a delivery *to us* that had gone to the wrong address. They would not take their gift, and considering its appearance, I don't blame them. Worst is, they're a neighbor we're almost certainly going to need a favor from -- a really *expensive* favor involving a tree that died on their property, which they almost certainly can't afford to take care of themselves :-(
Over and over again, I trip myself up over how the virtue of thoughtfulness doesn't just involve thinking of others and planning good things for them, but the executive function and, well, luxury of enough going right in your own life that you can carry out the good plans effectively.
I'm actually really grateful you wrote this, since I also just moved and have been atrocious at knitting into any of the neighbourhoods I've moved into (which by now has been many!), even when I walked through one to and from work every day. I start out each new place full of hope and excitement, thinking I'll get to know everyone, and then proceed to ... well, not. However, I really do think this time it'll be different! Our upstairs neighbours have kids, one seems about the same age as our daughter; I'm planning to set up container gardens on the porch (!); the entire street seems to have a culture of 'porching' and I'd love to take up that habit; we've already met the neighbours on both sides, and they *also* have kids! And maybe once the apartment interior is no longer its own cityscape of boxes I can invite people over.
Only tangentia:, if you find yourself bored once the bookshelves are filled again, you can always calculate how many books you own in poundage with a measuring tape; industry standard estimate is 50lbs per linear foot. A conservative estimate (say, for a whole bunch of children's books or paperbacks) might be 30lbs per linear foot. Last time I did this (after the move of summer 2020), we had a literal ton, even by the 30lbs/ft calculation. That number has not decreased.
I second many of the ideas raised below - gardening provides so many opportunities for reciprocity (Would you like some cucumbers? Could you water my plants while I'm gone next week? etc) and just being outside is a huge one, it removes the literal physical barrier of knocking on the door to converse. I also recommend hosting a National Night Out / Night to Unite gathering (happening August 2nd! It's not too late!) and sending holiday cards to everyone on the block, both of these have worked for me. But I really want to answer the last question and tell the story of the nicest thing my next door neighbors have done for me.
Seven years and one month ago I was (heavily, visibly) pregnant with twins. We were delighted and so were our elderly neighbors, who had warmly welcomed us to the block with cinnamon rolls when we moved in about 9 months earlier. My water broke at 34 weeks and off I went to spend a week in the hospital, returning home a week ahead of the two preemie babies that I left behind in the NICU. I hobbled from the car to the house on my husband's arm and I saw our elderly neighbor out watering her plants. I knew she had seen us but I avoided eye contact because I was sad and in pain and just wanted to be home. About 10 minutes later we see her drive away (this was at ~8PM on a Saturday night and she's in her 70s, this was atypical behavior) About an hour later she knocks on our door. I go to hide out in the bedroom (see above re: sad and in pain, I was not prepared for company) and ask my husband to answer the door. When she leaves I come out to see a basket on the table; a card, some gift cards to local restaurants for takeout dinners, and, most amazingly, 4 pints of perfectly ripe, absolutely heavenly July raspberries. After a week of hospital food I ate a dish of vanilla ice cream topped with those raspberries and I will never forget how they tasted or how loved I felt. I've thanked her and her husband many times since then, but that's a gift that I want remembered :-)
When my neighbor's dryer broke, she asked me if she could borrow a drying rack. I said yes, and feel free to bring your clothes over here to use our dryer if you want. I repeated the offer and she finally took me up on it after the new dryer delivery was delayed. (She has five kids and that's a lot of socks!) She thanked me, but I thanked her because I told her the fact that she used our dryer makes it easier for me to ask when I need something. Sometimes asking for help is as important as offering it.
I recommend gardening for being visibly available! I chat with my retired neighbor mostly about gardening because that's what we're both doing when we see each other. When we're traveling, I sometimes ask him to water my garden. It's an easy way to help each other out when you don't know each other very well, because you don't need to give out your house key.
We don't have much of a front porch, so we just got some lawn chairs. Lately I've been spending a lot of time sitting in the front yard reading while my toddler drinks from the sprinkler and points out all the babies and doggies that pass by.
I'm part of a loose neighborhood intentional community in Norwood Ohio (Cincinnati adjacent). It started with a Vineyard church plant and then people inviting friends to move to the neighborhood. This worked well because it's a former gm town and until recently houses were very cheap. People might not have been willing to move into a neighborhood with broken streets and abandoned buildings on their own but it made sense with an invitation and lots of others already there. So I think starting a knit together neighborhood feel with a core of people who share values has made this work in a unique way. From there we've gotten to know the existing "old neighbors" and also gotten involved in local government. Some highlights include meal trains for new babies or life crises, shared yards and yard work and yard tools, passing a mural ordinance, childcare co ops, starting a Montessori school, a pay as you can cafe, a csa with food grown on vacant lots, and the Catholic worker homeless shelter. we also used to have a lovely though labor intensive pay as you can pizza night on the vineyard church patio. Less labor intensive has been pick up wiffle ball games and backyard fires and seasonal celebrations like a set place for the pre Halloween trick or treating gathering and the new years party.
Some of the hardest parts have been a couple of divorces and moves... Also hard has been the recent real estate inflation, which incentivized selling and brought a really different crew of folks into the neighborhood :(
I'd say deeper neighborhood community has worked because we share dependency including child care, support each other's ventures economically, and loosely have committed to stay, albeit without any written covenant, but mostly via home ownership and check ins with each other. Some have even moved away, realized what they are missing, and come back! Some of the most significant fruit right now of commitment and knowing each other deeply is a very tight knit group of young teenagers who've all known each other since they were born!
Like other commenters here, I would previously have said that college (and, for me, several years in an intentional service community) were the high points of community/collaboration for me. But then I became very sick last year and had to start asking for help. Lots of people stepped up and it has truly changed my relationship to local community. A few things I've learned and will try to retain as habits even now that I'm better:
- scheduling walks. I set up a walking schedule with friends (weather permitting) to help me stay active during the worst of everything. Now, I've gotten much more intentional about scheduling walks and I reach out to people I don't know as well with requests like, "I know you've thought a lot about X or your family is really intentional about Y, I'd love to take a walk and hear more about that." And, of course, we often talk about more than X or Y but its a good start.
- making extra food to deliver. We did set up a meal train and some friends used that as a way to express support. But for other families, that kind of planning was not their jam (totally fine). One family, in particular, would every now and then just make an extra quiche (along with their own dinner) and then run it over to us. Quiches, casseroles, chilis and other items that can be frozen and stored are great for this. I think it began because we remarked at a potluck, one time, how much we liked their quiche and they ran with it. Now, we're trying to do the same.
- signature family event. My family holds an annual open house. It gives us a chance to open our home to neighbors and acquaintances we don't yet know well. This has been an especially great way to meet parents of our kids' classmates. And somehow, saying, hey we do this every year, we'd love to have you join us helps break the ice. By hosting this just once a year (and, frankly, in much the same way every year), we can make a big lift of an event fairly manageable.
What out-of-the-ordinary outreach has someone in your community offered? The sister of a woman in my neighborhood offered me 30 sessions of neurofeedback pro-bono when her sister told me that I'd suffered a concussion/mild traumatic brain injury in a car accident (in which I also broke my back and ribs). I was a single mom of a 12-year-old at the time. I had a ton of community support, but this one probably takes the cake.
My wife has found the local Buy Nothing group useful for practical giving and receiving, although we haven't developed deep relationships from it. I'm in the local Nextdoor group, but perhaps that would be a stronger and more positive mechanism if it were divided further in to areas of several blocks. What I find most difficult is when people in the neighborhood don't seem open to engaging in conversation; when I experience rejection I am less likely to try talking to them again and am a bit nervous with others as well.
Like other commenters, being in college was the best community of care I ever lived in. I lived in a sorority-style house with 35 other women and we shared community chores for the house and cooked communal meals every night. While I wouldn't want to live in quite such close quarters as an adult--I like having my own kitchen now!--I miss the extent to which everyone checked in on me when I was sick, overworked, having relationship troubles, you name it. And I miss knowing such a large number of people on a non-superficial level; most of my current friendships just don't have the depth you get from having dinner with the same people every night.
Similarly to other commenters, I'm part of my local Buy Nothing group, and I'm currently in the process of becoming one of its admins. Becoming an admin was not exactly my first choice, but I stepped up because I want the group to continue to exist. I hope it will help me build more connections in my current neighborhood, and perhaps allow me to facilitate that for others too.
I found my best community of care in college. There were a couple of us girls who got very close, partly through living in the same dorm and mostly through meeting every night to pray for each other. We were roommates or suitemates for all four years and taking care of each other just became a normal thing. One of us was involved in theater; during tech weeks, she'd often text our group chat to ask someone to bring her a sandwich for dinner and one of us would do it. When I caught the flu and had to quarantine, I never had to worry about who would bring me food. One time, one of us got sick to her stomach in the middle of the night and rather than bother an RA, we suitemates pitched in to clean it up (and honestly thought nothing of it). And we were consistently praying for each others' concerns, small or big. It's the first time I'd ever been part of a group of friends like that, and it was/is incredibly precious to me. Moving further away from them (we're still in touch, but practical ways of caring aren't as much of an option) has been one of the toughest parts of the last few years since graduating.
I really haven't gotten to know my current neighbors' needs at all, nor (to be honest) have I tried very hard. But then, living in an apartment complex means neighbors are comparatively transient, so I'm prepared to believe that living in a neighborhood might change that dynamic. I'm very jealous of that WhatsApp group, though -- that's a genius idea and I can see how trading small requests/tips/favors would make it so much easier to build relationships.
I love this notion that small and casual requests are what build connections. You're spurring me on to consider how I need to grow in my own neighborliness!
A few quick thoughts/ideas:
> Have you read Playborhood? It's full of delightful ways to engage neighbors in creating a space where kids can roam (and where neighbors know one another in more playful ways).
> Tearing up your front lawn! As Mary mentioned, gardening is a great way to connect with neighbors. For me, tearing up the yard, planting flowers and herbs and apple trees and adding a raised bed has been a boon for getting to know neighbors.
> Second the buy nothing group from Skylar! One neighbor bakes a ton of challah every Friday and offers it to others, and then follows up about joining her for shabbat. I can see you doing something similar :)
> Every Saturday in Australia there are hundreds of 'Fun Runs' - 5k running events organized entirely by volunteers. You can start a volunteer organization doing the same, or organizing a weekly or monthly weeding of a community garden, or a monthly playdate for parents with kids under 5. Creating a structured activity that involves some but not extensive planning in a public place is great. Bonus points if you create something that has bylaws and a democratic structure.
I've found that being an overwhelmed mom can get in the way of being neighborly. We've lived in our current place since 2019, when I had a pregnancy terrible for my lungs -- and of course right after that there was COVID.
Our neighbors are nice, and I've planned to return favors and give gifts. Mostly, this has worked out, but getting things done in a timely fashion is still hard. This year, I was late on packing the Christmas gifts I had planned. Arranging stuff with our own landlord, getting the kids to family Christmas, then a furnace that conked out in January, downed lines in February... It was March before I left the gifts on on my neighbors' doorsteps.
One neighbor got their gift just fine. The other neighbors were apparently out of town when I left the gift, and while there was nothing in the gift that couldn't sit a few days, I hadn't secured the package well and squirrels got into it. Those neighbors returned home to a soiled, mussed package that to them, looked like a delivery *to us* that had gone to the wrong address. They would not take their gift, and considering its appearance, I don't blame them. Worst is, they're a neighbor we're almost certainly going to need a favor from -- a really *expensive* favor involving a tree that died on their property, which they almost certainly can't afford to take care of themselves :-(
Over and over again, I trip myself up over how the virtue of thoughtfulness doesn't just involve thinking of others and planning good things for them, but the executive function and, well, luxury of enough going right in your own life that you can carry out the good plans effectively.
I'm actually really grateful you wrote this, since I also just moved and have been atrocious at knitting into any of the neighbourhoods I've moved into (which by now has been many!), even when I walked through one to and from work every day. I start out each new place full of hope and excitement, thinking I'll get to know everyone, and then proceed to ... well, not. However, I really do think this time it'll be different! Our upstairs neighbours have kids, one seems about the same age as our daughter; I'm planning to set up container gardens on the porch (!); the entire street seems to have a culture of 'porching' and I'd love to take up that habit; we've already met the neighbours on both sides, and they *also* have kids! And maybe once the apartment interior is no longer its own cityscape of boxes I can invite people over.
Only tangentia:, if you find yourself bored once the bookshelves are filled again, you can always calculate how many books you own in poundage with a measuring tape; industry standard estimate is 50lbs per linear foot. A conservative estimate (say, for a whole bunch of children's books or paperbacks) might be 30lbs per linear foot. Last time I did this (after the move of summer 2020), we had a literal ton, even by the 30lbs/ft calculation. That number has not decreased.