When I was young, I was an extrovert. I was that kid that would come up and ask your name in the swimming pool, and ten minutes later I was your best friend. And then I’d get upset and throw a tanty and… that’s another story.
But somewhere over the past decade, I’ve morphed into a home-body. I like to stay home, I hate meetings. I’m happy to meet up with friends, but I’ve stopped chatting to random strangers in the street. Yet, I’m feeling the lack of community. I live on a busy main street, replete with ambulances and fire trucks and buses and a whole heap of noisy. I do know the names of some of my neigbours, but could I ask any of them for a cup of sugar? I doubt it.
So my project over the next few months is to actively try and foster a slightly deeper sense of community. Not just the sugar-sharing kind, but trying to have at least one community meeting to discuss a communal problem that hasn’t been addressed at all in the decade I’ve lived here, which is the state of the pavements around here.
I could, at this point, share with you the rather distressing photo I sent to the local mayor of me with my fractured cheekbone, covered in blood and bruises, the result of a nasty fall just round the corner from where I live. But I’ll spare you.
Instead, just take it from me, that since my now-teenage kids were in prams, we’ve been complaining about the pavements around our house. They’ve been patched up with bitumen, which just contributes to the unevenness when the concrete pavers subside and the bitumen doesn’t. A decade of whinging is enough. It’s time to organise.
This, then, is the task I’ve set – to start out by inviting some of my known-ish neighbours round to dinner. Then connecting with the neighbour next door – the one we’ve had round to dinner once, but who we’ve recently had a falling out with, so trying to repair metaphorically broken fences. And then sending round flyers about a possible meeting to discuss the pavements and starting a small campaign – with the hope that it will lead to bigger things in future.
Advice and ideas welcome!
