Neighbors of the New Millenium

I had an experience that saddened me beyond words. I was torpedoed at a zoning board meeting. The board did not foresee the outrage of my neighbors on the cul de sac. I would put their children at risk, having up to EIGHT cars potentially leaving my home all at once during school hours. I am changing the tenor of the neighborhood, trying to sneak in a big business like running art workshops up to three days a week in my home.

Yes, indeed, I am a subversive. We moved in and added to the house, nineteen years ago, putting in a family room right below the in-law apartment, so that my sister could use more of the house as her own. It was permitted, mind you. EVERYTHING we do has its proper permits attached, well, because I try to follow the law. That's why I went through the zoning board, posted my big yellow signs for THREE weeks, not two. Made sure I was in the yard often enough so neighbors could ask me questions. People smiled and waved, as always.

And signed a petition behind my back. Wrote letters about how some young man lived TWO Years below the main part of the house, renting or something illegally. I pointed out that this was my son. He didn't pay rent.

Anyway, the commission had to deny me my dream. I cannot work outside the home like other people. I have legs that collapse with shooting pains that go up into my head--spinal cord injury from the past. Surgery kept me walking, but there was collateral long-run damage.

No one cared. Not even the four neighbors who knew it was my son, who knew why we had an in-family apartment, who knew I left for a year and a half to get over my daughter's death (and came back 12 years ago), who knew about my back and disability. Not the neighbor who told the zoning board that my forsythia hedge should be torn down, but I need to leave the lilacs for her, because I let her cut them every year. She told them I have a way with flowers. But I shouldn't have workshops. I was destroying the neighborhood, they said.

It seems to me, this paranoia, never talk in person mentality has done the destroying already. I bring bread to my neighbors, and let them cut my flowers. I give my candy at Halloween. Compliment the moms on their babies. But I am the bohemian hippy I guess... the spinster on the corner. I don't know. I know only that I cannot teach my workshops.

I never meant to instill fear in my neighbors. Nor turn the area into a commerce zone. The board calmed the neighbors down several times. Four of the commission never looked up except when I spoke. And they smiled at me, but the damage was done.

I think I'll work on flowers in the back yard this year, away from the joggers and the smiling faces that mask fears that only they can describe. For now? For today and perhaps tomorrow, too, I mourn the myth that I believed about my little corner of paradise. I am angry. I am hurt. I am sad, however, beyond belief.

The forsythia were torn down today, something we were going to do this year anyway. topsoil arrives tomorrow. We may spray on some lawn, as they do around the neighborhood. Don't know. But the terrible hazard of yellow on the corner is gone. One less thing to be hurled at my head, by neighbors who were never taught to simply talk when they think there might be a problem. Modern life in suburbia. I would like to leave here, go to my central Pa, to the farmlands there, and the areas where people are allowed to make a living from their home--and have cars in their driveway to boot.

And I will rise. I always do. I have a studio now and I will use it. I'll share it with my friends, a few at a time. We wouldn't want the neighbors to talk!