Blocked

I have a confession to make. I generally write these Notes pretty much last-minute on a Saturday, so that they can be sent out promptly early morning Valley time on a Sunday. But this note was written slightly ahead of time because, well, I’ll explain later.

Anyway, you know how there are times in life when, in order to make sense of things, you have to lean into a handy 19th-century German Philosopher? That’s been me, this week. And my 19th-century choice was Arthur Schopenhauer. He's pretty much my go-to, to be honest, as he’s the philosopher of pessimism, or the ‘shit happens guy’ to his friends, of which there weren’t many. Anyway, my favorite wee saying of his is:

All truth goes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Secondly, it is violently opposed. Thirdly, it's accepted as being self-evident.

Clever eh? Who cares that he was a bit of a miserable bastard when he turned out so wise? Anyway, his wee saying has been keeping me afloat this week.

You see, Americans love a block party, when the community gets together, and they close off their street, and everybody hangs out and chills with one another. Back where we lived before, the street alongside of us had one every year that we were always invited to. It was mental: the kids ran in and out of houses and up and down the street, people brought their BBQ grills out and made burgers or brats. There was karaoke, and corn hole games, and ice cream trucks. and the highlight for everyone was when the fire brigade turned up, and the kids would squeal with delight at getting up so close to a fire engine, while many of the ladies -and also a fair amount of gentlemen- would squeal with delight at getting up so close with the guys who manned the truck.

Anyway, it truly was a beautiful thing because we’re not all the same flavor. When it comes down to it, the only real guaranteed similarity between neighbors can be that, for whatever reason, they just happen to live in the same locale. But throw in a couple of grills, an ice cream truck, and a karaoke machine, and you can find friendships develop.

Where we live now, there’s never been a block party, but as neighbors go, I still pretty much do think we hit the jackpot. They are good people. Some neighbors are your sneaky glass of wine on a Friday afternoon people, others are your have a tussle on Facebook and still be pals peeps, and there's the neighbors you invite to your important events and others who invite you to theirs. There’s neighbors you exchange Christmas gifts with, or look after each other’s houses. And also obviously, there’s neighbors who’re not particularly my tribe, but that’s still ok. Some are just “wave as you pass’ people, and others are way, way too important to even notice you are there.

Like The Important People who live across the street. They're always very busy doing important things, so they don't have time to talk to us, and often they’re way too busy to even return a wave. Though their kids are almost exactly the same age as our kids, their kids go to a much fancier school a good drive away from us, and it has never been remotely suggested our kids should meet. And when their dog ran away, and Mark brought it back, they were too important even to open the door to let the dog in, until Mark had turned his back and was looking to see if there was anyone else around. Then the door opened, the dog nipped in, and it closed again while Mark stood on the doorstep, not important enough to be addressed.

And to be honest, we’ve been totally good with that. It’s part of what I love about living in a city. Variation is key. We don’t each have to be in everybody’s face. They're probably good people in their own way. And long ago, Mark and I accepted we’ll never be important enough to know.

So a couple of months ago when Mrs Important, and her youngest son, Important Junior, came round to our door one day asking if we’d sign a petition to allow Junior to set up a block party in our street, we were surprised - not just because we were now important enough to be talked to, but also because Important Junior has always looked like quite a shy wee thing. But at the idea of a block party, we were thrilled. And of course, we said yes. Because a block party is about community, right? And right now, during this current global clusterfuck, who doesn't benefit from a sense of community?

Then we totally forgot about it because we figured that if the permit was accepted and there was to be a block party, they'd definitely tell us, right? Because they’d want us to be involved, right? Because a block party is all about community, right? Wrong.

On Wednesday, another neighbor happened to be talking to Mr Important in passing, and Mr Important revealed excitedly that block party was happening this Saturday. He was very pleased with himself, explaining that there would be two sound stages built, one for musicians doing acoustic sets, the other for live bands, and the street would be getting closed to allow space for the food trucks and also the chemical toilets.

It was a bit of a surprise to that neighbor who knew nothing about it. So then he called another neighbor whose wife has ongoing problems with her heart and had just come out of hospital. He asked if they knew. He figured they should, as the acoustic stage was going to be directly in front of their house, which might prove tricky should she need to go back to hospital. But of course, they had no idea either.

So then that neighbor called us, asking if we knew anything about it. We’d said we didn’t, and we’d laughed, thinking that the idea that someone would take over a whole street without bothering to tell anyone, was so ridiculous there had to be crossed lines. There was nothing about it on social media. There didn’t seem to be any announcements on any community pages. It would be nuts.

But then, when we were heading out to the store, we saw Important Junior holding a clipboard, laughing and waving to another guy, who getting into his car said he couldn’t wait for Saturday.

When we got back home, Mark checked online to see if a permit had been issued. It had. On Saturday, our street was being closed.

So I texted some other neighbors. Everybody had remembered signing the petition and were looking forward to hearing if there was a go-ahead, but after that they’d heard nothing. People laughed at first hearing the party was happening. They couldn’t believe it to be true. Then, after considering how much effort there had to have been in the closure of the street, and the planning, it was clear how many times the Importants had bypassed any concerns about anyone who actually lives here, and pretty much everyone’s understanding of the truth hit Schopenhauer’s level 2.

And though we could all, with a laugh, agree it was a first-world problem, and not exactly Palestine, it was difficult not to feel rage.

Now it is just a plain old fact of life that Mark is a much better human than me. And though I was pretty much of the “What the actual fucking fuck with these people?” Mark pointed out that the event was supposedly being produced by an 18-year-old who had just graduated High School. Mark said he himself had made some pretty stupid mistakes when he was 18, and fortunately none of them so big he couldn’t shake them off. But if this event really was going ahead in the current state of affairs, then it was likely that this might be a mistake that would stay with that kid forever. (Damn him and his handsome reasonableness.)

So he went across the street to Mrs Important's house and knocked on the door. She wouldn't let him in, obviously. In fact, she called out that she was too busy to open the door. But when he said he wanted to talk about the event, the door opened a couple of inches, and her head popped out.

Mark, all smiles, asked if the event was happening on Saturday. She said yes, and that Junior had made sure everyone had been informed and had sent round a leaflet to every house. She said he was very busy. He had graduated High School and was going to Harvard, but before that, he would be going to the Edinburgh Fringe, and here he was organizing this block party that was being sponsored by Converse. She was very pleased about it all. She said she’d text him a link for the block party

Mark, as I say, is a much nicer person than me, so having gotten the information, he crossed the street to tell me it really was a thing, so we could work out what to do next.

The link to the event showed where the stages and the food trucks would be. My friend Melissa, who hadn’t even known about the petition, was surprised to discover a whole BBQ situation was just in front of her gate. There was even an Instagram account where Junior talked about what a cool event it was going to be and about the bands that were playing. But nothing for any of us. It was a party to which we were not invited. And I admit, I was fucking angry.

But Even-tempered, Reasonable, Tweddle texted Mrs. Important to tell her that many of the neighbors didn't know about the block party and were a bit upset.

Mrs Important texted him back assuring him that that everyone had been told and asked if there was a group chat she could join to reassure any neighbors who had concerns.

Mark replied that there was no group chat, and the neighbors concerns were mostly that they didn’t even know the block party was happening.

Mrs Important wanted to know the names of those neighbors. Mark gave her quite a list. Mrs Important said she didn’t know some of them and wouldn’t know what houses they lived in. But, she said, she had talked to her son, and he had assured her he’d definitely talked to the neighbors and given them all leaflets.

I’m not going to lie. It all was beginning to feel a bit Twilight Zone. Mark was texting her what he knew to be true, and she was texting back that it was not. So eventually Mark texted, “Your son lied. He did not tell the neighbors. And by the way, though this event is supposed to be for charity, I can’t see the charity ID number on any of the literature.”

A couple of minutes later, Mark’s phone pinged. It was a text from our next-door neighbor asking Mark if he had any concerns about the upcoming block party, and stating that he was co-producing the event. Mark and this neighbor are friends. They know each other pretty well, so Mark responded with two of his concerns and closed the text with “What the actual fuck, Dude?”

Anyway, I was sitting in the living room texting with neighbors who were all in the same kind of “this situation was really not on my bingo card of crazy for this week,” when Mark popped his head in to say he was going outside. Looking out the window, I saw my next-door neighbor and Mrs Important crossing the street to meet him. Mrs Important was wailing.

“You called my son a liar. How could you call my son a liar?”

“I didn’t call your son a liar.” Mark said evenly, “I said he lied. There’s a difference.”

“You called my son a liar. My son. How could you call him a liar?”

Mark is very calm until he’s not, and I could see he was working very hard to not lose it. It was tricky though, because Mrs Important just wouldn’t stop wailing.

“How could you even say my son’s a liar? How could anyone ever say my son, my son, is a liar?”

“He hasn’t told anyone about the party. Nobody knows”

Watching from the window, it crossed my mind how one time the postman had delivered the Importants’ mail to our house by mistake, and before dropping it in their mailbox, I noticed one of the letters was for Mrs Important’s SAG membership. I was not at all surprised she had her union card, because she was definitely more than capable of rustling up a drama.

Anyway, clearly Mark, in all his handsome reasonableness, was being outnumbered by the crazy, so I went out to join him. When I got there, he shot me a look showing he was relieved to see me, if only so I could bear witness to the complete lunacy of the situation.

Now the thing is, I’m normally the angry one, and I’m not averse to flying off the handle, but she was so out there, I actually felt strangely calm. And when she interrupted any attempt at conversation with, “He called my son a liar. Why are you doing this to me? Why are you doing this to our family?” I actually felt kind of sorry for her.

I mean, nobody’s perfect. We all fuck up from time to time. Even Schopenhauer, with all his wisdom, still thought that women were incapable of deep thought and were basically big children -though standing there with Mrs Important, I could kind of see his point.

“The people on this street have not been told about your party,” I said.

“They do know,” she said, “They do. 45 leaflets have gone out.”

I had to hand it to her. It’s one thing to try to gaslight someone you know, but to attempt to gaslight a whole street of people you don’t even talk to, is impressively ambitious - especially when all those people talk to each other.

We were hitting a standoff.

Just then, NextDoor neighbor’s small kid appeared to say his ball had come into our garden by mistake, and Mark went off to fetch it. No sooner had he gone than Mr Important appeared.

And I could go on about how the conversation went, but to be honest, I’m guessing you get the drift. There was a lot of wailing, and a load of denial, and eventually, when Mr NextDoor managed to get Mrs Important to zip it for a couple of seconds, I managed to tell them that if they wanted to help their kid, they ought to go down the block and speak to the neighbors and apologize like grown adults. And that is apparently what they did.

Fergus and his girlfriend, Lucy, who is visiting from Pennsylvania, watched all of the action from the window alongside Lachlan. They said it was entertaining watching Mark stoically doing his best to not lose his temper and me looking ‘fully over it.’

But to be honest, I’m not ‘fully over it,’ and neither is Mark. The party will go ahead, and it will be what it will be, and I’m trying not to think about it too much because I don’t like the person I become when I do. I do not like to wish ill will on anyone. I especially don’t want an 18-year-old to come a cropper. But my resentment at their level of entitlement feels like a bad smell I can’t shake off.

A couple of times of late, Mark has questioned whether he should have bothered saying anything at all. He wonders whether he should have just let it blow up in their face and watch from the sideline. But a few neighbors have messaged to thank him for doing “the right thing,” and that has really helped.

And on the positive front, because Mark lost his shit at his NextDoor pal, there’s no one in front of our house, and more importantly, there’s no sound stage in front of the house with our friend with the heart condition.

And so it’s currently early Saturday morning, and I’m writing this Note ahead of time, because later I will be hanging out with neighbors. Neighbors who are truly good friends. Not at the block party, obviously. But at Melissa’s house, right behind the BBQ area.

Looking out my window onto the street, I see they are in the early stages of setting up. Aside from the Importants, there’s not one familiar face among them. There are no grills coming out. No corn hole. No laughter as someone on a walker tries ridiculously to also drag a cooler. These are the graduating kids from the school that kids who attend Ivy League colleges go to. I don’t recall seeing them round here before. I expect we live in an area they wouldn’t normally visit.

This morning they delivered an envelope with wristbands - the ones we need to wear to walk down our own street. And because they don’t care to know us, they have no idea about Lucy staying. I guess she’ll be staying in today rather than navigating the $20 entrance fee.

I wish I could stop myself feeling bitter. I don’t like it in myself. If they’d just said this was a graduation party for people they like better than us, and they needed our street because their backyard is not big enough, I’d have been ok. But they couldn’t even do that.

When I’m angry or upset or feel myself being eaten away with resentment, I always try to picture the story from the other person’s perspective. I force myself to think about how the story could look if my enemy were really the hero and I were really the villain, because usually it gives me a clearer perspective of what is going on. But in this case, I can’t. I feel totally blocked.

So when we hang out in Melissa’s house, and I drink a margarita made for me by my big pal, Pablo, laughing with Mark and with Amy, and periodically looking out on whatever clusterfuck this event will be, the best I can do is to contemplate the words of my handy 19th-century philosopher.

“All truth goes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Secondly, it is violently opposed. Thirdly, it’s accepted as being self-evident.”

We’ve gone past the first stage, and the second. I guess it won’t be until the party’s over that the third stage will land.

There has been much texting and goodwill between the inhabitants of our street this week. There were kind wishes, and neighbors dropping off fruit from their yard, or just dropping by to marvel about the audacity of those who evidently aren’t that bothered we exist.

It’s been nice. It has felt like community. So I guess this block party did bring the neighbors together after all. Just not quite the way we would have planned.

Lynn

Xo

PS: Clicking on the wee heart emoji to say you like this post is like a block party online where everyone is invited. Ok, so yes, I am completely manipulative.

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