putting the knit in shizknitz

Home is where the heart is, or in my case, where my stuff is. I think many post-collegiate people are in the same boat as I am - you go away to college where you have your “home” address and your “school” address, then you move from apartment to apartment until you realize that your nomadic lifestyle has now become your way of life and new home. In the last 6.5 years I have moved 7 times, each time my mom swearing she will never help me move again.

Living all over the westside, I have become to know the hidden streets, shortcuts, when not to take certain routes and where the best restaurants are. This has, of course, made me feel as if I have embraced my community, the surroundings of where I live. I figure this is enhanced by the fact I walk my dog every morning and night, 365 days a year, pouring rain or brilliant SoCal sunshine - I can tell you which apartments have availabilities - 3, 2 or 1 bedroom(s), which corner dogs like to crap on, which buildings are newly renovated and that the people living on the first floor of that one corner apartment have Korean BBQ on Thursday nights.

Through all of these tid-bits, I have never embraced my neighborhood. Sure, I have walked to the Carniceria, the Liquor store, Palms Supermarket for the weekend taco stand and Cafe Brazil for rice and beans. But for the first time last night, I had a pondering thought about what my community really is about. I voted for the first time in my life - I took my yellow postcard, walked out the back of my complex, around the corner and into the auditorium of the elementary school which was filled with many other people from my neighborhood, all whom I don’t know. I realized that this yellow postcard put me in a certain “precinct” or area, and as we each individually walked up to the table, they would confirm their addresses - all street names and addresses so familiar to me because of my daily walks, but no faces were familiar to me. It struck me that if any of my neighbors from my complex were to have been there, that I wouldn’t even realize - because I don’t even know who my neighbors are.

I grew up in a time when all kids watched Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and the Mario Brothers were the guys down the street. We knew all of our neighbors, many of whom had lived there for most of their lives. Summers included lemonade stands, BBQ’s and pool parties - we knew all of the other family’s lives as well as they knew ours. As I get older, it makes me wonder if this feeling of detachment is because of my age, or where I live, or worse yet - a shift and change in society as a whole.

As I stood there in the voting booth (a flimsy standup thing with a plastic thing to give you privacy) exercising one of the most powerful privileges of being a citizen by making choices which will affect the future of Calif and my local community - that we each have a responsibility to what creates the dynamics of our neighborhood. To those voting next to me, I was another unknown face - or at best - the girl who walks her dog religiously. As I made my final selections on the ballot, I vowed that someday I will settle down in a place I call home, an address I can finally place on my checks and drivers license……. “won’t you be, my neighbor. Hello neighbor!”