Some Neighbourly Insights
An aggregate definition of the word neighbour simply states that it is a person or a thing, a like entity, who either lives near by, or is located in close proximity. To my surprise the definitions that I checked were exclusively geographical and spatial in nature, that is to say there was no emotional or social component even implying that neighbours “get along," neighbours can be friends, even borrow cups of sugar, or hand tools. In fact nothing of a social nature came up in any definition.
This lack of social content made me curious about the very nature of neighbours and gave me pause to reflect on my own nomadic life style and the many neighbours I have had.
When I was born, almost seven decades ago, my parents brought me to their, and I guess my first house on Vine St in St. Catharines. There my older seductive female neighbour Candy intoduced me to a little game she liked to call, I’ll let you see mine if you let me see yours. In my Mennonite innocence I thought at first she was referring to my marble or coin collection.
She got me focussed on the real issues at hand by sitting me on a couch in her basement and showed me the lingerie and bathing suit sections from the Sears and Eaton’s catalogues, systematically and throughly constantly quizzing me on what I thought of this girl or that. To me at first it all seemed like a totally pointless exercise.
Anyway, Candy eventually revealed many heavenly, bodily secrets to me that I will never find in any catalogue anywhere. To this day if I see a catalogue I still think with affection of Candy (even if her brother tried to kill me)...now that was a neighbour.
Robert Frost writes that good neighbours build fences and require a degree of separation to keep the peace and good will flowing. This class of neighbour especially follows the geographic definition I first came across. I have had several anal retentive neighbours of this definition type who have laid out the boundary-line defining the properties, theirs and mine, with wooden stakes and yellow ropes.
We were at liberty to wave at each other while cutting grass, shovelling snow, taking out garbage and at many other ceremonial and traditional neighbourly occasions during the year, but it would always be across a visible yellow rope. Somehow such a demarcation kills the spontaneity of relationship building.
More recently, we have had neighbours who outwardly could be quasi-friendly while covertly plotting our demise in sinister clandestine tones while openly lying to your face. The friendly hypocrites. This couple engaged my wife and I in superficial friendly banter, waved at us on the above mentioned ceremonial and traditional neighbour interaction days such as grass cutting, weed plucking, etc only to, at every opportunity, report us to the city by-law officers for every perceived infraction of any by-law they could possibly manufacture.
They once complained to bylaw about our hot tub use before we even had our hot tub hooked to electrical or even filled with water. Mind boggling! They lodged complaints on a regular basis, nothing ever stuck, but only served to prove what lousy neighbours they were and always would be.
I tried to remain friendly, on the surface, with these neighbours, only because I think it really irritated them. I think this neighbour brought out the best, or worst of all my passive/aggressive tendencies. I secretly plotted their downfall. Eventually, we moved across the street.
While in university I lived in an apartment on the third floor next to the elevator, a constant source of irritation, but even worse was the basketball, thumping neighbour who lived just below. Finally, one night, make that early, early morning I could stand the noise no longer the THUMP, THUMP, thump, thump,THUMP... that never seemed to stop. It was like Chinese water torture with the slow steady inescapably drip to the forehead...‘till finally, "Yes I’ll tell you all the codes you want just make the dripping stop."
Indignantly I threw on my house coat, got my slippers out from the back of the closet, put on the kettle, brewed some tea, watched a few minutes of a late night talk show, got up my courage and marched straight downstairs, boycotting the elevator, to confront my noisy neighbour. I had had it!!!
I knocked on his door. I suppose that was only a tap. I KNOCKED on his door. It opened slowly inward, as doors do. There standing and holding his basketball upside down in the palm of one hand was my seven foot something neighbour. He was intimidating. In a quiet polite voice I asked him if he could please practice at another time and in return I hope I really wasn’t disturbing him. Good-night. I fled.
Amazingly the bouncing stopped. That experience taught me that by addressing conflict situations head-on, regardless of circumstances, there are always solutions. That was a neighbour with a life lesson.
While living in Kuwait City on the eighth floor apartment, over looking the Arabian (Persian) Gulf, we were frequently bothered by extremely noisy parties from the tenth floor. Eventually, we identified them as coming from that floor, but originally the sounds were so loud they seemed to emanate from all directions making it almost impossible to isolate the source.
Often in the lobby we witnessed caterers coming in with elaborate food trays. In addition there were many, what appeared to be Eastern European prostitutes. I’m not at liberty to say why I could so easily recognize an Eastern European prostitute, but suffice it to say they tend to stand out in a Middle Eastern environment.
On one particular night there was a particularly loud party. Going out on to the balcony we could not at first tell where it was coming from, up or down. Out in the hall sound seemed to reverberate in crazy echoes and the source was even more difficult to discern.
First, I walked down the stairs and as the party sounds grew quieter I reversed direction until my wife and I reached the tenth floor. The penthouse.
My palms began to sweat as I had flashbacks to university days fearing that a seven foot something basketball giant could aggressively come to the door, or worse. We knocked. I suppose that was only a tap. We knocked louder, then louder still. The door opened inward as doors do. I was fearful to look in.
The basketball player had been replaced by an incredible half naked, full-bodied, extremely seductive, Eastern European prostitute. I know don’t ask. I made the universal hand gesture for your music is far too loud, likely exceeding 140 decibels, could you kindly turn it down.
A drink in one hand, laughing, another universal language, and highly flushed and still only partially clothed, as I vaguely recall she was wearing a man's light blue striped shirt with the top four buttons undone, she had a gold necklace with a large pendent buried between her amazing cleavage. She was moderately tanned, in bare feet about 5 feet 4 inches with straight blond hair, likely dyed...but I only caught a fleeting glance. She shrugged her shoulders at my feeble attempt at communication and quickly left with the door still wide open.
Next to arrive also half clothed, shirt undone, in boxer shorts, was our Kuwaiti landlord.
I mumbled under my breath or thought it, hoping to God it was not in a speech bubble above my head, “Holly mother of God are we totally fucked”.
The look on my wife’s face seemed to indicate that she concurred making me think I had actually said this out loud or there was in fact a speech bubble above my head. I looked up.
In a Canadian context you might think no big deal, or even how ironic you are complaining about noise to your landlord. Put in a cultural context this semi-naked guy in front of us, the owner of his building in which we were but mere foreign tenants, in an Islamic despotic state, who could have us jailed, with our passports taken, and left to rot while being abused nightly by unshaven guards in a cold prison cell...made me think over my limited options.
Fortunately, Kuwait being a shaming culture caused our dear landlord to actually listen to our plea concerning the noise. We quickly departed in fear for our lives thinking perhaps our pleas had fallen on deaf ears. We sought sanctuary in our apartment waiting for the police to take us to prison for an indefinite internment.
That night in Kuwait my landlord neighbour taught me fear....but as time passed, shamed by a westerner and his wife, we felt safer. We kept a low profile in the future even while watching the caterers and Eastern European Prostitutes heading up to the tenth floor to our landlord/neighbour.
As for the definition of neighbour...I think it has more to do with border definitions, sexual awareness, athletic prowess, dysfunctional hot tubs, random complaints and Eastern European Prostitutes in close proximity.
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