rocky soil #003

My family is pretty much settled in our new undisclosed location we call home. The long limbo summer is over. Settlement is sweetness. Time to start finding an income...

Meanwhile, our local neighborhood culture of non-communication is as foreign to me as it gets. And I'm not that chatty of a social person. But for next door neighbors to blatantly avoid eye contact just rubs me so wrong. I'm trying to get used to it, but I feel so lonely.

Our trio of neighbors to the left, the New-Sanfords (mom, teen daughter and teen son), drove up into their driveway the other day when I was about ten feet away hacking up our long neglected cedar bushes. Just cold shoulders. I'd say hi. The mom would return the hi without looking back. I didn't know how to take that. Oh well.

Meanwhile, I'm hacking up this trio of long over-looked cedars knowing good and well it was going to take a few years before they would fill out and actually resemble desirable foliage.

Then the Creator aloud me to realize that my neighbor trio was no different. It could be a few years before any semblance of relationship ever exists. That's just the culture in River Dog.

Today I accidentally met the mom. She was working the check-out at a local grocery. Thus she was forced to acknowledge my presence. But only because it was her job. I tried not to take advantage of the situation too harshly.

"I think I'm you're next door neighbor", I said.

"Yes"

That was about all I got out of her other than her work related communications.

Tonight while picking up a couple of donated refrigerators for the Reach Out, my cousin Mark educated me slightly more on the spirits running this region: Distrust.

Distrust between whites and aboriginals. Distrust between aboriginals and christians. Distrust between wealthy and poor. And so on.

And the rumors are true: my neighbor (her name is Dana. I got that from her name tag) did lose her husband to suicide last year. Thus her kids lost their dad. Mark knew all about it as everyone in a small town would.

I can't imagine her pain.

The distrust is starting to make sense.