Well, it's about time...

So I finally met my next-door neighbor yesterday. I've lived here almost two and a half years, and I had no idea who lived just east of me. The only thing I knew was that he never shoveled snow off the sidewalk beyond the fence that marks the edge of his property (heard that from my landlord, and saw it, myself).

I decided to shovel the snow before I went to work yesterday. We'd gotten about three inches, which isn't usually too bad; but this was the really wet, easily packed snow, so it was more demanding than I'd expected. In our fourplex, I'm one of two residents that actually even has a snow shovel...and I've been the only one to use it for the last four snow storms.

I'd just gotten warmed up to the task when my other neighbor, Keri, gave me a laugh by waving at me frantically through her living-room window. She's an EMT, and still owes me dinner for sewing the patches on her uniform back in late June (I'm not holding her to it, it just makes for a good icebreaker any time we cross paths...) I got all the walks shoveled, and was working on the sidewalk, when I noticed the other neighbor was out, shovelling his driveway.

I admit...it was tempting to just call it good when I got done. I mean, what had he ever done for me? But I also grew up in a neighborhood where it was just common habit to help the neighbors shovel snow...so I shouldered my shovel and walked over and asked if he needed a hand.

The first thing that ran through my mind when he turned around was, "Well, no wonder he doesn't shovel any extra snow!" He was an elderly gentleman. He smiled, and said he could handle it. So I repeated my question..."Yes, but would you like a hand?"

Half an hour later, as we finished the driveway and stood enjoying our work, I reflected on everything I'd learned about my neighbor from taking that little bit of effort...he graduated from Utah State fifty years before I did. He was a widower...told me with a wistful smile about a girl he dated while living in Logan named "Thelma Darling" (I had a 'cinematic moment' in my head, seeing an introduction, love-at-first-sight moment..."Miss Darling? I'm Mister Wright...") He had no idea I lived in the fourplex, much less that I was in the unit closest to his house. He's the only one still at home.

There were two old women in the neighborhood where I grew up...one had divorced decades earlier, the other was a widow. Both had renters, that never bothered shovelling the snow...they'd just pack it down. While I rarely saw either one of them, any time I did, they smiled at me. And it felt good. This reminded me of that feeling...hearkened me back to a much simpler time in my life. For a few moments, all was good with the world.

And then I had to go to work, and shovel snow there, because nobody else there ever shovels it...they just walk on it and pack it down, until it gets icy. Bad news, when your office is located at the bottom of an inclined ramp on the shady side of the building. And it only takes about ten minutes to clear the ramp. It's another case of me getting the jobs nobody else wants to do (which, I feel, is one of my strongest selling points to staying on staff. Hey, I don't care what they have me do, I've done worse...trust me, I've done worse.) And it was back to the world of getting the bills paid, fixing the car, trying to keep all my conflicting commitments and prioritizing which conflicts had to be set aside...but part of my soul had been refreshed, and I tackled the world with a new sense of enthusiasm.

Next time I'm out shovelling snow, I'm going past the fence again.