We rented a one-bedroom apartment in a six-unit complex centered around a courtyard that had been built in the flurry of post-WWII housing. Out our front door and kitchen window was a unit with an identical floor plan in reverse. I had a remote job, so I spent a lot of time at home, during which I got to know the neighbor across the way. Her cats bathed in the sun on the low wall fronting the courtyard while I sat on my steps.
She told me stories of the restaurant she had owned around the corner, her career aspirations. I looked on as she fell in love. Eventually, we also got to know the quiet, brilliant woman who lived in the back unit and walked by with her bike everyday. We spent sun-soaked conversations talking about studies, the weather, the zucchini plants we were growing, which she watered when we were away.
We became a small community. Then, one by one, we all moved out. Across this drive-way is a nearly identical house to ours, with the same small yard and a plumeria tree. Also similarly, living across the way was a couple quick to welcome us.
The husband spent afternoons in his covered driveway, listening to country music one day, Hawaiian the next. Slowly, he became one of our quotidian joys, a burst of conversation after a stressful tantrum, a bright moment in isolated days. His wife waved to us as she fed the birds when she got home from work and gave our daughter gifts on her birthday and holidays.
He fondly recounted spending afternoons roaming the area with the neighbor boys. We also have more neighbors, of course. Other faces blur, or are soon replaced by new residents.
