Feeling good in the neighborhood

By Patricia Hunt
Published: June 13, 2008

On a corner down the street from my house is an old house that has been cut up into apartments. They can’t be very large because, judging from the number of mail boxes on the front of the building, there are a lot of them. In back of the building and completely exposed to the street is a small patio. Every summer it is turned into a resort. It happened again this year.
I saw a man who has lived in that building for years buying a big umbrella at a yard sale in the neighborhood. Currently this in-town resort has two umbrellas, a couple of grills, three tables and a lot of chairs. It wouldn’t meet the standards of the shelter magazines because it lacks large pots of flowering plants, but it suits the people who use it just fine.
I have no idea who these people are. I only know what they do. They hang out, eat, talk and generally seem to have a grand time. When I read the travel section of newspapers and see those photos of people lounging around pools at expensive hotels or frolicking in the surf with tanned and perfect bodies, it looks staged. The people in the photos look like the hired models they most assuredly are. I don’t think I would notice that could I not see the real deal down the street. They look relaxed. They don’t look like their main purpose in life is to look good.
Americans are gaga over privacy. There was a time when people hung out on the front porch so they could see their neighbors pass by, speak to them, visit. Then came cars, and your neighbors whizzed by encased in metal. People retreated to the backyard, where they built screened porches, patios, decks and put in “privacy fences” so the neighbors couldn’t spy on them. I like spying on my neighbors. I like watching them having fun. They don’t have to invite me over. I am not offended if I am not included in their party. I just like seeing life.
I also don’t give a flip if my neighbors see me. I am not sunbathing in the nude. I am not sunbathing at all. There is nothing I do in my backyard that is even interesting, so I don’t care if they want to observe. Not too long ago, I heard the neighbor behind me playing a flute. It was quite beautiful and I wished I could have said so, but I can’t see through the fence (which belongs to that house, not mine). 
On one side, the neighbors put in a high-quality privacy fence. They are fine people, and I am grateful for the attractive fence they put in, but I do sometimes wish I could wave over the fence like people do in Dennis the Menace comic strips. The Mitchells’ fence was mostly to keep their dog, Ruff, in, not to keep the eyes of the neighbors out.
The only fence that is actually mine I inherited from the previous owners. It is short and has space between the pickets offering no privacy to me or my neighbor. Sometimes a child visits her. I enjoy hearing a child’s voice and the sounds of splashing in the little pool installed a couple of years ago. This year she added a hot-pink Adirondack chair that has brightened my life considerably. I have a sneaking suspicion that if it were up to her, there would be a 10-foot wall separating my property from hers, but I could be wrong. Maybe she has as much fun observing the goings-on at my place as I enjoy seeing her new plants and beach umbrella.
I keep thinking I should march myself down to the homegrown resort down the street, take some beverages and food they might like, and tell them that I simply enjoy knowing they are having a good time. The point would not be to make friends with them or even get myself invited to the party, I just want to give them a thumbs up.
The publications I read are all clucking about how Americans are going to stay home this summer because they are too broke to travel. My neighbors are way ahead of them. They’ve got this thing mastered. 
Patricia Hunt, of Staunton, is a chaplain at Mary Baldwin College.