Suburbia

Sometimes life in this town feels surreally wholesome. On Saturday morning, I worked in the front yard, planting flowers in pots and windowboxes. Two older neighbors across the street tended their lawns. Birds sang, and sunshine glowed over the flowering trees. Brad-the-mailman walked house to house, and his arrival set off chatter about our property re-evaluations, which everyone was receiving in the mail. I felt like I was in the beginning of a play set in small-town America.

That night, I was telling a friend at a party about the wholesome, neighborly feeling. She told me she thinks it's partially the effect of living in a neighborhood without garages. She used to live in an inner-ring suburb like mine before moving out to the newer exurbs; she says that now she hardly ever talks to her neighbors because everyone drives into their garages and enters their houses from there. We don't have a garage, and while some of our neighbors have detached garages or carports, people generally have to enter their houses through the front doors. Who knew that by lugging our groceries up the front walk we were also building community?