Yesterday, while out on a walk, hubby and I walked by a house and heard the smoke alarm going off. We stood for a couple of minutes, as the alarm continued to go off. The windows were all open on a cool day, but no one appeared to be home. There didn't seem to be any smoke or flames. Living in the anonymity of the suburbs, we didn't know any of the neighbors, so we noted the address walked 3 blocks back home to get one of our cell phones and call 911.
But we felt all funny and weird about it. We walked back to the scene, but didn't stick around. A fire truck came, neighbors came out of the wood work and started calling the home owners, someone procured a garage door opener and let in the firemen. Soon after the firemen dispersed from the home.
What struck me was this drastic shift that has occurred in me the past 5 years that we've lived here. My rural upbringing that engendered community concern with out fear of embarrassment or shame about our concern has waned drastically. I actually had a crazy moment of thinking that the fire department might be suspicious of us as strangers just calling in something out of the ordinary. I hope that this part of me is one that isn't too hard to reclaim when I leave suburbia. I also want to challenge myself to continue to feel less weirdness about getting to know my neighbors and to feel a sense of communal ownership and concern.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
<
1 comment:
One day while I was delivering mail in a development, I saw a guy standing the sidewalk outside a house. He said, "there's an alarm going off inside. Can you hear it?"
I sat and waited for him to call the security company, which he did, and they took care of things.
My initial reaction was to be suspicious; i.e. why was this guy standing around looking into someone else's house from the sidewalk?
It turned out he was just being a good neighbor.
Post a Comment