A Season for Grieving

I was just upstairs and a library patron talked about the suddenness in the weather change. It dawned on me that I'm grieving for the passing summer. Autumn, with its coolness, brisk wind, and color had always been my favorite season. Since Sunday when the chill seemed to claim a permanence, I've felt a bit low and sad.

With that brief conversation, I realized it's not the weather that is affecting me, but the fact that it means no more frequent porch gatherings or movies. Certainly, I'll enjoy get togethers with friends in coffee shops and spontaneous meetings, but I've found it's not the same. Two years ago I didn't enjoy going home as much as I have the last year. I've so fully embraced the character of my neighborhood and I've come to cherish it.

I'll miss the kids riding their bikes and anything else with wheels. I'll miss their just stopping by, coming up on the porch, sometimes wordlessly and then quietly disappearing; at other times they'll engage in conversations or pull out a board game. Where can we gather when the porch isn't warm enough? Kids are why we must take care of our neighborhoods.

Of course, I want the color of beautiful flowers, the peace of no loud mufflers or the stress of a screech or squeal of a car in the intersection, the sound of a bottle being thrown from a car window to the breaking point of hitting the pavement. I've known pure beauty and I've known evil. But the kids are at a starting point in life...and they ARE our kids.

It's the little lessons....

On Saturday evening when I called the police about the public urination, several of the kids exclaimed, "You called the police?! When are the coming? I'm getting out of here!" The message they were giving is that police are bad news; I'd heard this before from the same kids. I assured them that the police weren't going to question them, they could stay on the porch, and they didn't have to talk or be any where near the police.

When the officer came, I went to the sidewalk...right behind me were three of our boys - enthusiastically giving descriptions of the offender and incident! On the porch again, one commented, "That wasn't bad".

Mostly it was a pleasant weekend

It was a pleasant weekend. I had loads of energy after work on Friday and attacked the messiness in my bedroom....dust on furniture, dragged out 'things' stored under the bed...in the process of cleaning one room, I made a mess of two others as the found and moved items make their way to other storage spots, to Goodwill, etc., or to the trash. K and the boys played video games on the porch, using the projector.

Saturday, three of the kids stopped up to play a board game while it was still warm and light; then Kira stopped with a fundraiser for her school.
Movies with kids and neighbors on Friday and Saturday. The kids were really wound up on Friday night. We all chattered, teased, and talked more than watched any movie. On Saturday we all watched the old version of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Sunday, no kids. Ariel came over to talk and borrowed a library book, we caught up on making connections for her signing lessons. I had been sorting through my 33Lps and 78s, needing to get rid of some (any takers?); Ariel had never seen a turn table/ record player. It was fun to introduce her to one, along with some 60s folk music! Then B and I decided to make popcorn and watch 'The Way We Were'. Besides the draw of Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand, I had forgotten how I liked the story itself. We bundled up in quilts, heavy socks and I ate popcorn for supper.
I still think using 321 Bates as a drop-in center for kids would be a better use of property than the problem property it's been all the years I've lived across from it. That, or tear it down for green space/play area for kids.

Saturday B called the police for a domestic fight across the street and then in the evening with all the kids, we saw a man stop and publicly urinate. Sometimes I can give leeway, depending on...whatever, I don't know. I blew up on this one...ran out to him -there were four other people in his car. He was a big guy, towel around his neck, bling; after I told him no public urination and he told me I was harassing him, I followed him to his car and called him, several times, a pig. Of course, he blew me off. I stood in front of his car to get the plate number. The car is one that frequents our neighborhood, goes through stop signs, and speeds, but a police check (they came very quickly) noted the car is not from our neighborhood. The kids were worried that the driver was going to run into me, as he drove forward when I was getting the plate number, but he wouldn't have done that. That's the third public urination in about three months. WHY such pigs?! The last was broad daylight - two males visiting across the street...and I was on the porch at the time!

Porchtalk

Errands after work, then a fundraiser luau for Vallay Moua, then home shortly after 8 tonight. I brought the projector home, and sure enough, as I walked from the car to the porch, Cesar rode over and asked about movies. He and F came up to the porch and then Bonni and Kyle came out. Though Cesar brought up movies several times, I much enjoyed that the five of us talked until 11:00 about the boys' first week at school. For F, it has included another student pouring alcohol or perfume on his shirt and being called into the principal's office, a friend being shot by a bb gun at school, being offered coke, another student getting into his locker and tearing up earned 'money' that goes toward a field trip, and a number of other events and interactions.

Cesar, with his smile that lights up the darkness, attends a different school and seems to really like it. I worry about F. He said he has a gym teacher who helps with his English, so perhaps he's found a bit of an anchor there. We talked with him about building a relationship with at least one teacher with whom he could talk.

The boys talked, too, about some of the relationships among neighborhood kids. With tonight's conversation and the one I had on the street two days ago with a number of the kids, some of what I've been seeing and hearing comes together.

As Kyle said later, it's great that the kids can come and talk with people of different ages. It's true....hard to say who gets the most from it. From the seriousness of school, to what they're learning in sex education, to the boys pretending to see a rodent (I think they were pretending), to confiding about bike thefts and neighborhood dramas, to Cesar feeling comfortable enough to know that he could dip into the candy machine from the top while I was filling it, and to the laughing about silly stories from three generations. Tonight was a very special gem. And tomorrow, Cesar and I may go to see if we can find the turkeys that roam behind the library...and there's talk about playing dodge ball...the question is, will Bonni give up Barack Obama for an afternoon of dodge ball?

Negative baggage from school to home

School began on Tuesday for most of our neighborhood children. Normally that transition would bring a sense of relief to parents and neighbors. Unfortunately that doesn't ring true in our neighborhood right now. I don't recall any 'play fighting' this past summer, and we seemed to have been free of arguing and fighting in the street overall.

Yet on Tuesday, one boy took swings at another, who vowed he wouldn't hit a younger or smaller boy, but slew words and taunts back. Today the same two were at it in front of L's home. She had planned a party for the group of kids, as a 'thank you' for searching for her lost cat a few weeks ago. She has second thoughts with all this fighting...it wears thin on people. I said I would talk to the kids if possible. I did talk with several, still not the fist swinger.

One of the kids, the no-hitter/taunter, has a lot of personal issues; we talked about what he can control and can't...the fact that he defends his brother and then his brother hangs out with the antangonist; the fact that someone else loses his temper - that B can control only how he acts/reacts...and it goes on. I've asked him to focus on this one situation and write what really troubles him and what he can/cannot control.

Someone fill me in...it appears to me that while these kids got along all summer, when they go to their many schools all over the city, they connect with other small groups with their own summer baggage/history/attitudes and they pick up some of that nasty baggage and carry it back to their home neighborhoods which are usually removed from their school life. Are they acting like some adults who take their negative home life to work or 'kick the dog' syndrome, from work to home?

I'm fortunate.....

A time I could kick myself - On the way to work this morning, a man I know to be homeless and stays at the Bethel Hotel, mentioned how pleasant the weather was. I agreed, going on about how I loved to pull the sheets up and feel the crisp coolness in the morning, wanting to stay in bed a bit longer.

My brain then kicked in, reminding me that at the Gospel Mission, the men don't have a choice about staying in later, that it can be so close and stuffy, they don't necessarily get the freshness I do with all my windows and choice as to leaving them opened or closed. I worry a lot about finances and making ends meet every payday, but I do have one, and I treasure the small things.

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