Neighborly nice

It's amazing what sort of neighborly congeniality natural disasters, or any kind of disasters, can conjure up. Last month during the winter crisis, neighbors were out in the street, shoveling the sidewalks together, helping to maneuver cars out of parallel parking spaces, smiling at each other with a Wow, can you believe this?? sort of expression. H helped a neighbor push his car, wheels spinning, to a spot where the tires were able to catch, building up enough speed to get himself down the street. His wife, a neighbor who must live within 20 feet of us, and seemed quite charming, dropped by some lemon bars the next day as a thank you. We had a short conversation, I closed the door, commenting to myself that they seemed like nice people, wondering vaguely about the possibilities of striking up a new friendship, and I haven't seen her since.

A friend of mine once commented that the end of a final exam was like that - you could walk out of the exam with someone you hadn't spoken to all semester long, and chances are you would still have at least a 15 minute conversation about the exam questions, how hard you thought it was, how you thought the professor would grade, etc. - because all of a sudden you had something stressful in common, the same vulnerability and desperation.

Our neighbors have crawled back inside their apartments, gone back to their normal social circles, and began diverting their eyes quickly again when they see each other. I suppose it says something that people ban together in a desperate situation, when they really need each other. Maybe it's a bit sad that we really don't have things to say to our neighbors on a regular basis. I do think it's a shame that connections and nice encounters don't happen like that more often. Guess we'll be waiting until the next winter crisis to make headway on our neighborly relationships.