Signs of Spring

My Neighborhood

Photo by Joel Holland on Unsplash

April was true to its name: Days with thunderstorms and heavy rain alternating with beautiful, clear Spring days. This week started a row of sunny days in the 70s. The whole neighborhood is humming with the sound of lawn mowers. Neighbors are stopping by to chat, and grandchildren and dogs are frolicking on the lawns.

Spring has finally come!

There were no children on our street for a while. When I moved here 32 years ago, the neighborhood was crawling with little kids, painting sidewalks and riding bikes. Those kids are all grown now with their own families. But as of this year, we have grandchildren visiting.

There is something about having children in the neighborhood, a kind of energy, a simple joy of living that is missing in places without them.

I do not miss the pressure cooker years (a full time career and kids to ferry to all kinds of places and never enough time) — but it is fun to watch from afar.

Age creates distance. Just like Daisy in The Great Gatsby, we are “above the struggles of the poor” and those of the eternally busy. We are beyond crazy schedules and deadlines.

I can mow the lawn on a Tuesday morning and watch my neighbor leave for work. He has to mow his at 5 p.m. when work is done while the rest of us, retired, sit…