Molly and I were going through old photos — and I mean OLD photos, like great-greats in ornate dresses and handlebar moustaches. And then Molly handed me an 8×11.
“Who are these people?” she asked, without looking up from the pile of pictures in her lap.
That caught my attention because Molly knows my family lineage pretty well — both sides — she’d at least have a guess.
But when I saw all those 20 or so faces, perched on knees in the front, standing up and holding elbows in the back, on the hill in a wooded park in Connecticut, I understood why she didn’t recognize them, why she couldn’t possibly ID a single face.
“These were my neighbors,” I said. And I held onto that picture longer than you’d expect for someone to hold a picture of people who weren’t blood-related.
“My god,” I said.
And Molly looked up. “Lots of memories?”
“Yeah.”
I knew these people inside and out, children and adults: who was mad at who on that very day, who drank an entire 2-liter of Pepsi, who always won at kickball, who was once my blood brother (by ceremony, not actual blood – we used to rub scabs together – ew.)
And what happened to each of them: death, divorce, laid off, college, not college, gay, abused, still there, out of the country.
Some of those adults raised me, thought. Mrs. _____________, Mr. _____________. My God, there he is with his black socks and sandals, with his 2 cigars in the breast pocket of a short-sleeved shirt.
And those kids! Every day after school from ages 5-10… playing guns, football, kickball, SPUD, whiffle ball, fighting over the rules, playing until it got so dark we couldn’t see the ball anymore. And then see you guys tomorrow, even if we fought, even if Dan and Ryan didn’t share their Pop Shoppe colored sodas with us. Always tomorrow, right off the bus, backpack slung off in the driveway, and running, running to get there first. Where? Doesn’t matter. Run, run, run.
It really hit me. All of this. Neighbors.
I took a photo with my phone to immortalize it and send it to my brother, who would invariably have the same response. And my dad, who will probably get teary-eyed.
So having immersed in the nostalgia of childhood for several hours, maybe it was coincidence or maybe our subconscious made it happen, but after Hazel’s soccer game, instead of walking up our stairs to throw our stuff on the foyer bench, we skipped across the street to talk with the neighbors, whose 3 kids were playing in the bed of their new pickup truck.
We did that neighbor thing of talking on the sidewalk, stretching what was supposed to be a quick check-in into a 1-hour outdoor playdate. For kids and adults. The neighbors went inside, came back out with beers, the kids picked flowers out of their garden and hung on tree branches. And one of our best friends (also now a neighbor!) pulled up in her car and joined in. And another stopped to say hi while walking her dog, who was finally free of the cone of shame. And another neighbor came out of the house across the street, chasing her 8-year-old, who wanted to get in on the tree-hanging and flower-gathering.
Then Hazel started inviting everyone over our house to go on the waterslide. It was 5:30 pm, still warm, still light.
And they came. And the mom across the street brought the leftover pizza from the birthday she had just come from. And more beers. And the mom next door brought stories of her son getting his first job. And the littlest one found his way into Hazel’s motorized miniature sports car. And all 4 of the kids, eventually full of pizza and shivering from watersliding, found their way into our bathtub, piled high with soap suds.
We ate pizzas, drank beers and CBD fizzies, and shared stories. Took turns checking on the bathtub, coming back into the conversation. What did I miss?
And, several times at least, thanked each other for being our neighbors.
Like kids playing driveway wiffle ball, we didn’t stop until it was getting too hard to see each other. I might have brought out the candles, were it not a school night.
One of the moms — I think it was Molly — had the good idea to snap a photo of the kids in the bathtub.
That’s a pic Hazel will enjoy in her own basement, with her own family. And she’ll tell stories she hasn’t thought about in a while, stories of flowers and waterliding and the bathtub game they made up that the adults didn’t know about.
And maybe she’ll forward me the pic from her holographic smartphone.
And I’ll get teary-eyed.