I have always vaguely resented my parents for choosing to live in the suburbs. To me, the suburbs are inherently lonely. People living next to one another, but separate, in their little compartments with lawns. There were never any sounds growing up, or at least not the kind of ambient sounds I craved. This is something I've always liked about China - there's always people yelling at one another, street vendors hawking their wares, the rush of cars and scooters. Maybe this is why it was so creepy to be in Chengdu in February. The streets were completely silent. I've never been able to concentrate in complete silence.
Today, our neighborhood in suburban DC was full of sounds. It was a warm and sunny afternoon and I sat on our side porch. Our next door neighbor took a phone call on her porch; our backyard neighbor played catch with his son and his dog. After a bit he went to the fence to chat with his next door neighbor. They talked about the traffic on University boulevard. These overlapping waves of audio input filled me with pleasure as I read a chapter from Plagues and People, about disease pools in ancient Eurasia. I was not talking to anyone; but I was still, somehow, participating in this mild neighborhood intercourse just by being there, tuning in and out while I read my book.
I suspect the loneliness that I associate with the suburbs has as much to do with their physical layout as with the arrangement of modern life. People work long hours; they don't have time to go outside; their children spend the afterschool hours at enriching activities rather than playing with neighboring children. I saw dozens of kids out today, riding their bikes, running around, and it's strange how strange that seemed to me. But it made me really happy.
How is your neighborhood right now? Is it coming alive or eerily silent? What is life like right now in the city? in the country? What's the biggest change?
Lauren
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Hey Lauren!
ReplyDeleteI usually like learning and teaching history because it reminds us of our insignificance but also fills the world with meaning and patterns and distractions. I haven't dipped into stuff like Plagues and People for fear of spiraling into a mental health black hole that would just constantly remind me of the present rather than pulling me out of it. But maybe there's some prophylactic effect of reading about plagues across history that I should be exploring here?
We live in an urban space: we're a 10 minute walk from the center of downtown. But it's also not a dense city at all, it just sprawls, even this close to downtown. I've loved our neighborhood since we moved here. There's a lot of public housing which means kids and families rather than just blankfaced twentysomethings which is kind of the vibe of the rest of the city. Anyway things seem mostly unchanged in the last few days. I'm not usually around in weekdays but it feels like a looong weekend.
-James
I'm sure it varies person to person but for me learning about the plague (which i have been doing obsessively) helps. In general, information is control, even if it's information (not that well confirmed, impossible to confirm) about the spread of disease in the deep past. I like learning concrete details about these things, helps me build a narrative. But that could be a the journalist in me talking. I also may have reached coronavirus galaxy brain as this is my third quarantine lol.
Delete"the longest weekend ever" would be a good optimistic euphemism for coronavirus lockdown....
I'm also in a kind of suburban area, and there's a big walking path along the river where I tend to see most (any) people. These days the path is fuller with people, often families or pairs, than I've seen before. I also see a lot of lone mothers and children. A lot of happy dogs enjoying more walking time. I've noticed that with the increase in activity, there's an increase in evidence of activity: signs and posters have cropped up overnight with frequency, often political. It's cheering. There feels to me a shared acknowledgement, often silent, when people pass each other on the path, that they normally wouldn't see each other, that these are unusual circumstances. Your musings also remind me of one of my fave pieces of literature, a little essay called "Knoxville: Summer 1915" by James Agee. "Mild neighborhood intercourse" is so beautifully stated and he captures that feeling, which you also describe, evocatively.
ReplyDeleteOh I must read that James Agee! Thank you for the recommendation.
DeleteSolidarity is the thing I crave most, both in life but especially during the virus. That's great that you sense it your walks. I think I've been sensing it in my neighborhood too. Someone I didn't know said hi to me from across the street today and I almost jumped I was so surprised.
I never really felt that solidarity in china, except maybe a little bit on the day Li Wenliang died, there was something in the air. It was also deep winter and people weren't even leaving their apartment complexes, which is a big difference
My colleague texted me the other day that she feels like the people in her neighborhood walk around without making eye contact, which was so sad to me. I got that feeling in the supermarket, but walking around the pond in my city, the park, etc, everyone's still smiling at dogs even if they're not petting them.
ReplyDeleteI've loved watching the parks fill, the bike paths busy with children running around. I also love your phrase "mild neighborhood intercourse." There's a lot of Jane Jacobs that fits this sentiment, and I wonder if, in isolation, people will realize that a two person household, alone, cannot possibly fill all of human needs without community.
Yes! Jane Jacobs put so much value on those "middle ring" (the circle of people beyond our friends and family with whom we have frequent but not intimate interaction) community ties. I think it was maybe Richard Sennett who (lovingly) called this her "typical New Yorker's cosmopolitan indifference" or something like that...I wish I could find the quote...but at any rate, yes, we all need that middle ring, and I wonder if we won't see some of that layer re-emerging as the virus progresses...
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