Important Stuff

 

This morning at the end of our walk, a neighbor shut down his lawn mower and came to the curb.  We talked about getting the mowing done before it rained.  We talked about his twelve hour shift.  We talked about the long weekend he was getting and the good times he was going to have with his kids.  We talked about which ones had already gotten out of school and which one was finished tomorrow.  He asked about my knee. 

In other words we meandered around discovering nothing important, solving no problem.  It occurred to me that if we didn’t do our own yard work, we’d never have had that conversation.  Yeah, but we’d probably be making more money.  Yeah, but we wouldn’t have neighbors.  We’d have people whose addresses were close to ours numerically, people that we saw driving by on their way to we don’t know where. 

A lot of us are busy.  A lot of us have important things to do with our time.  But we don’t have the time to shoot the bull with the guy down the street.  We rarely see him.  We only communicate with people who are important to us.  People we work with.  People who share our ‘quality’ time at the gym or in our cycling club or at church.  We talk to them about our shared prejudices. 

I don’t know what my neighbor believes.  I don’t know if he goes to church or what party he votes for.  I do know that his father was a contractor and left all his tools to his only son.  And I know that if I need anything, or any help with anything, not important stuff, just things like plumbing or fixing he has the tool and he’ll come over and show me how to use it while he’s telling me a story about his father and his kids and his wife, if it’s a good day.

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I think that’s what makes a community, a neighborhood.  And I think that’s important stuff.