A gift on my last birthday was a small desk calendar with the title “African Wisdom for Life.” Each day’s message provides food for thought in the form of a proverb from a different region. A recent entry, from Kenya, read: “Be a neighbor to a human being and not to a fence.”
While good neighbors maintain their property up to the fence line, great neighbors reach out across the barriers to engage the people on the other side. Whether being actively involved with each other’s lives and families, or just sharing a friendly greeting; being a neighbor is so much more than just physical proximity.
Neighbors need to look for shared opportunities to make life better in their neighborhoods. Despite the efforts of the winter weather to keep us inside, cocooning is not a solution for the long run. While I jokingly wonder whether the snow mountains on our cul de sac will be gone before our annual subdivision Easter Egg Hunt (I am feeling pretty good about this thanks to the late April Easter this year), I look forward to this event to see my neighbors after the long winter. Being Gladys Kravitz and peeking at the world through the drapes is no way to live. We all need to be out and about, engaging our senses and looking for opportunities to interact and improve the experiences of everyone. Neighbors need to engage, not judge.
The Homeowners Confederation mantra, thanks to my good friend Dr. Bob Buckman, is that we do things “neighbor-to-neighbor.”
Our March NAHC meeting (8 AM Sat., March 22, in Naperville Municipal Center meeting rooms B&C) will look at the Park District’s planned activity center and Naperville electric rates. Come join us for this session because, in the words of Mr. Rogers, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”
