Stories of Neighboring from our Reservoir Community!

May 16, 2016

Snapshots of Neighboring from the Reservoir Community!
Many of you have already communicated your experiences of neighboring to us – we thought it would be encouraging to share these as we all try to navigate our own efforts of neighboring.

“I’ve been trying to not feel pressure to do anything in this neighboring season that doesn’t resonate, and since my current neighborhood has never resonated (the fact I’m moving in July seemed to solidify that), I’ve been focusing my efforts on other “neighbors” (near the church, near my family, etc.).   Tonight I was sitting in the backyard talking toa friend on the phone when I heard/saw my neighbor taking out the trash. We waved “hi” across the yard and then I made a game time decision and hung up on my friend and scrambled up the little embankment between our yards to say a proper hello. In our 15 minutes of talking, I learned her name!, we discovered common interests (yoga), I invited myself to her mindfulness workshop in the fall (she said yes :)), and we are scheduling dinner with this young Italian couple she was recently introduced to who are new to Boston.  I’m so happy I said hello! I wish I had done it sooner! What an amazing neighbor I have!”

“My husband and I were out for a walk with our toddler.   As we were walking our toddler stopped by some of the flowers and shrubbery  of my neighbor.  It was apparent that my  neighbor was watching from her window, as she started pounding on her window and motioning for us to move away from her plants with a very mean expression.   We were slightly shocked and a little offended.  However, the next Sunday at church – I felt like God was suggesting I drop one of the “Dome Table” plants off at her door.  I left the plant and a short note – expecting to hear nothing in return.  A couple of days later – I receive a long typed letter from our neighbor – apologizing and acknowledging her crankiness and extending the offer for our toddler to pick flowers whenever she wanted.”

“I’m a middle-school teacher. This week I was walking my class back to our classroom from a different area of the school.  A fellow teacher came out of her classroom extremely angry at the noise level of my class.   She directed all of the anger at me and quickly stormed back into her own classroom.  Instead of reacting in a retaliatory nature – I decided to email her and apologize for the noise.   She immediately responded by coming to my room and hugging me!”

“I recently broke up with my boyfriend.  A few days after the break-up, I decided to go to a morning Zumba class at my local gym that I’ve been going to for several years.  Zumba isn’t a class I usually attend – but as soon as the music started I found myself being able to process some of the break-up through emotion.  At the end – I told the class of 60 women how meaningful the time was with them.  Many of these women came and hugged me and offered their phone numbers to me after this moment!”

“I took two plants from the Dome table to my neighbors in my apartment building and they both were wonderfully happy!”

“I was gardening out front in my yard this week and met a neighbor and his family – that I had never met before!  They asked a simple question about one of my flowers and this spurred on a great conversation”.