Down the block lives an old homebound woman who sits at the window all day and watches people go by in the neighborhood. I've passed her by many times but only walked by without acknowledging her with a smile or a wave hello. The other day I finally did wave to her, and her countenance changed instantly: she smiled and nodded back. Now I feel like visiting her, listen to her talk about the many years of her life, let her re-live again her many decades of, I'm sure, loyal service to her neighborhood, family and country. Perhaps my doing so will make her feel alive again; vital and wanted, involved, protected and safe. Perhaps if I visit her and give her the chance to show her nobility, grace and strength, she'll feel her beauty once again.
An afterthought:
When I moved into my grandparent's home on Hayes Street in San Francisco in 1982, I felt uneasy then, too. After a couple months, I had a "sign" that I should be comfortable. I had a dream that grandma came back to life to visit me. We had a chat in the kitchen about whatever. When I woke up, I never again felt uneasy about living in my grandparents' house. It was as if (certainly the effect was as if) grandma had told me that it was alright for me to live there; that I needn't feel uneasy about living in "their" home.
The point is that whenever I move to some new place (if I feel uncomfortable there), I need to have some kind of "sign" to put me at ease.
13 November 1997 (2)
I've been here about a month, and I'm just now beginning to feel comfortable: settled in to my room as though it's a home, and into the neighborhood as though I'm now allowed to stay; welcomed into the neighborhood not necessarily by the people, but by the streets, the buildings, the air.
Oddly, it was only when I began to sense that I was now familiar to the residents here that I became aware of what the situation was before: all eyes upon me, a curious and suspicious character; a stranger who needed to be watched. It was only when they relaxed toward me that I realized the personality of the neighborhood toward newcomers. But now that I sense that they are changing, I now notice from what they are now changing. This is definitely a neighborhood where you should talk to your neighbors.
Though this sort of scrutiny can feel daunting, I must say that I admire it. Instead of feeling my personal doings intruded upon - my own business interfered with by people who have no business in my business - through this sense of the neighbors monitoring my comings and goings, I perceive a sense of community that I've never felt in San Francisco. There, espying neighbors would be thought of as snoops; here, people are simply demonstrating the sense of nativism that transient San Franciscans only pretend to have.
When San Franciscans say "neighborhood," they refer only to the overall personality of the district as arises out of the type of shops and the general class of people who live there, not to any active participation with or concern for each other. (And when San Franciscans say "community," they mean a political group who share narrowly-defined interests, regardless of in what "neighborhoods" all members of that group live.)
Funny, I hadn't begun to feel any of this until I brought home this old chair that I'm now sitting in. I took in the chair, gave it a new home, and now the neighborhood is giving me the same. It's true: you get what you give.
Oddly, it was only when I began to sense that I was now familiar to the residents here that I became aware of what the situation was before: all eyes upon me, a curious and suspicious character; a stranger who needed to be watched. It was only when they relaxed toward me that I realized the personality of the neighborhood toward newcomers. But now that I sense that they are changing, I now notice from what they are now changing. This is definitely a neighborhood where you should talk to your neighbors.
Though this sort of scrutiny can feel daunting, I must say that I admire it. Instead of feeling my personal doings intruded upon - my own business interfered with by people who have no business in my business - through this sense of the neighbors monitoring my comings and goings, I perceive a sense of community that I've never felt in San Francisco. There, espying neighbors would be thought of as snoops; here, people are simply demonstrating the sense of nativism that transient San Franciscans only pretend to have.
When San Franciscans say "neighborhood," they refer only to the overall personality of the district as arises out of the type of shops and the general class of people who live there, not to any active participation with or concern for each other. (And when San Franciscans say "community," they mean a political group who share narrowly-defined interests, regardless of in what "neighborhoods" all members of that group live.)
Funny, I hadn't begun to feel any of this until I brought home this old chair that I'm now sitting in. I took in the chair, gave it a new home, and now the neighborhood is giving me the same. It's true: you get what you give.
13 November 1997 (1)
I'm sitting here in my tiny bedroom off the kitchen in my antique chair that I trash-picked off the streetcorner of Prescott and Princeton a couple blocks away (I was returning from a minutes-before-midnight CD purchase of the Brahms Trios). Here in Boston, residents don't need to hang on to their junk until they can get 'hold of a truck to load up and take everything to the dumps: just put everything out on the sidewalk and the trashmen will pick it up and haul it off. As people put out their unwanted items the night before collection, scavenging in the middle of the night can result in some nice finds.
After weaving myself up and down and across the streets of my neighborhood, on the corner of Prescott and Princeton I found a beautiful old chair. Just sitting there alone in the cold in the dark, I fell in love with it on first sight. Solid hardwood frame, stained dark, carved ornamentation along the top edge, woven cane enclosing the sides from below the arms to the seat, the seat and back upholstered in a fabric whose once-satiny sheen is now as muted as its green color.
It was about 2:00am when I fought to carry this wide chair through the narrow front door with only with a few bangs into walls that, I asked the next day, did wake up some people in the building.
So now here I sit in the chair, in my bedroom off the kitchen, ready to write some letters and do some writing.
After weaving myself up and down and across the streets of my neighborhood, on the corner of Prescott and Princeton I found a beautiful old chair. Just sitting there alone in the cold in the dark, I fell in love with it on first sight. Solid hardwood frame, stained dark, carved ornamentation along the top edge, woven cane enclosing the sides from below the arms to the seat, the seat and back upholstered in a fabric whose once-satiny sheen is now as muted as its green color.
It was about 2:00am when I fought to carry this wide chair through the narrow front door with only with a few bangs into walls that, I asked the next day, did wake up some people in the building.
So now here I sit in the chair, in my bedroom off the kitchen, ready to write some letters and do some writing.
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