Picture a (regular) electricity blackout. You take out your dusty candles from their spot and knock on the neighbours’ door to check in. Somehow, everyone ends up playing candlelit cards, eating sunflower seeds and telling stories. Or imagine a pre-mobile-phone information network that makes sure you know when the grocery store has restocked essential items, like flour or oil or sugar. And your child is safely looked after if you need to get in the queue for that essential.
That’s what neighbourliness looked like when I was growing up in communist Romania. Like a supporting net that kept everyone afloat. Together.
So you can’t blame me for romanticising the image of good neighbours. Add to that the many TV series of my youth, and spending all my holidays in my grandparents’ village, where almost every neighbour has known me both as a three-year-old and as a mum of a three-year-old; and that might explain why I’ve always craved to belong to a tight knit neighbourhood again.
I’ve had some close calls, and some lovely neighbours, but I could never quite replicate that sense of belonging that a small village exudes.
We’ve been living in our house for six years now. Until last year, we knew the names of a couple of neighbours, we even attended a few end-of-year street parties, and we exchanged polite nods with friendly faces at times. But even though we lived meters away from each other, we were cordial strangers. Until the pandemic hit.
But even though we lived meters away from each other, we were cordial strangers. Until the pandemic hit.
That desire to feel connected to the people around me turned into a need. It’s not that I needed socialising or company - as an introvert I could go for days, even weeks, without much of either. But introversion doesn’t exclude me from needing to feel connected, to feel belonging. There’s a sense of home, of safety, of trust, that surfaces when you know that beyond an adjacent door, there is someone of kin, someone who belongs to this place and recognises that you belong there, too.
On the eve of the first lockdown in Melbourne last year, my Scottish neighbour Kate printed flyers inviting people to a street Whatsapp group. She was afraid of being lonely. So was I, but I didn’t dare contact anyone around me. They were strangers after all.
When I eventually joined the thread; that light chatter, the influx of neighbourhood updates, reports, and goods exchange, had an immediate and soothing effect on me.
The ‘five kilometres radius’ and ‘only four reasons to leave the house’ rules made our lives small and contained. But in that Whatsapp group, our neighbourhood was slowly becoming a village.
Soon, I boasted to my partner about the updates - even the ordinary, mundane ones - as if I belonged to an exclusive community. I guess what I was feeling was belonging.
On harder days, it was a comforting feeling to know that life continued in my ‘village’. It was still buzzing with activity, with goods swapped, even when that day may have been a particularly tough one inside my head. And on lucky days, someone had ripe figs to give away. Or mandarins. Or olives. And the good brain chemicals returned to celebrate the humanness, the generosity, the belonging.
Antoanela's family at Halloween. Source: Supplied
In this one year, I’ve created more street memories, more roots and more connections than in the whole six years I’ve lived at this address.
Since I’ve been connected to the group, new neighbours keep joining. If we run into someone at the playground, or on the street and it’s clear they live close by, we invite them in.
Since I’ve been connected to the group, new neighbours keep joining. If we run into someone at the playground, or on the street and it’s clear they live close by, we invite them in.
We all came out of last year’s long lockdown with a little Halloween street procession. It was a windy spring day, but adults and kids alike donned their suits and joined an improvised parade. It was my first Halloween ever, but the planning, the coordinating, made it feel like a ‘thing we neighbours do together’.
We then welcomed summer with a neighbourhood party. Someone knew a band, we put the date in our calendars, brought snacks and a band contribution, and we gathered in the grassy reserve behind our house.
We danced and laughed and told stories.
Apart from hope and anecdotes, we also share goods: books, toys, furniture and food.
I exchanged some brownies for deliciously ripe figs. I acquired two Santa chimney socks, a miniature piano that has seen better days but has not stopped delivering joy, a unicorn suit, and olives, so many olives.
One of the neighbours started a delivery-only baking business and overnight we started ordering and waking up to still-warm-out-of-the-oven croissants, crumpets and sourdough on our doorstep.
One of the neighbours started a delivery-only baking business and overnight we started ordering and waking up to still-warm-out-of-the-oven croissants, crumpets and sourdough on our doorstep.
And yes, one day we won’t have to worry about being confined to a 5km radius again. But I feel this village is in it for the long run, lockdowns or not. Because belonging to it feels like sitting in front of a cozy fireplace in a quaint, drafty home.
When we move, I will miss our house and our neighbourhood thread. But now that I’ve seen what’s possible, I’ll take the village idea to the next place I go to. I only need a drop of courage and a phone.
