What makes a good neighbor?
Funny that this question comes up today after I just connected with a neighbor of mine that lives a few houses down from me. I have no idea who she is, but she’s a good neighbor simply because of her yard flags.
I first noticed the flag at the edge of her yard that said, “Politicians are temporary, Wu-tang is forever”. Being a child of the 90s, I absolutely know about the Wu-tang Clan. That flag tickled me.
Then came the “Taylor for President” flag. I think it may have also said “Swift 2024” or something. Obviously a reference to Taylor Swift. However, at that time, I wasn’t a Swiftie yet. But, these flags were letting me know about the kind of neighbor he/she was.
But then I got on my Swiftie journey and just as I was getting close to the end of it, a new flag appeared. It said, “In this house we listen to Taylor’s Version”. I got excited when I saw it because I know what it means! Lots of Taylor’s early albums have a “Taylor’s Version” that she re-recorded and included extra “vault” tracks on as a way to say a big F- you to the guy who bought her masters and refused to give them back to her.
With this knowledge, I knew that with the new album coming out, I wanted to connect with this neighbor. I totally planned on stopping my car and hopping out to say hello if I ever drove by and he/she was in the yard. Hasn’t happened yet. But what has happened, is that I ordered a new flag for her. With the new album being called “The Life of a Showgirl”, I ordered a flag that says, “In my showgirl era” in the sparkly aqua blue and orange colors that are associated with the album.
Despite my husband thinking the whole thing was weird, I put the flag in a bag with a note explaining my admiration of her flags and the hope that she is as much a fan of the new album as I am. I left it on her doorstep and the very next day, she left something on my doorstep!
Inside was a lovely note of thanks (on Taylor Swift stationery) and an exclamation of love for all things Taylor and the new album. She also included two friendship bracelets. One that says Swiftie and one that says Wu-tang because I had told her about noticing her house when she had the Wu-tang flag out. She also included a Taylor Swift coloring book and an enamel pin with a song lyric on it!
I was so excited about this and my husband again insisted it’s weird since I don’t know her, but it’s absolutely not.
We have yet to actually meet, but we will at some point I’m sure.
To me, that’s a good neighbor. Someone who shares a similar interest and is thoughtful and just fun. Of course, I have good neighbors on either side of me and I don’t know anything about their interests or if they’re fun and thoughtful. One guy sits on his back porch smoking the herb that’s still illegal in my southern Bible belt state and yells at people in Italian on the phone. He owns a super popular Italian restaurant in my city. His ex-wife owns another wildly popular Italian restaurant in my city. I’ve never been to either one.
The neighbor on the other side is super nice. She has a little dog named Ollie that found and exploited a hole in our fence and came over to visit our dog Millie before we got Ethan. Ollie could never find his way back to his side and I always had to text his mom to come pick him up. Before we found the hole, Ethan found it once and ended up in Ollie’s yard, also unable to get back to our yard.
I guess a good neighbor is someone who you don’t have a problem with. Coexisting peacefully in the same area is just fine, even if you don’t know much about them. I have lots more stories about neighbors, the couple across the street who are oddly interested in my husband and talk to him quite frequently. Though I’ve never talked to either of them. Lots of stories about neighbors in our apartment over the years. Those are “can you believe that?!” kind of stories. In our neighborhood now, they’re much more “oh that’s nice”. I’m good with that. Because if they weren’t, my newfound “get off my lawn” attitude would make an appearance. Just sayin’.
Leave a Reply