Well, this past week it happened a little more on its own.
These are the super cool wristbands that were given out at the block party in our neighborhood. There was a block closed to traffic with a whole bunch of food and games on the street. Our contribution to the meal was a small vat of mashed potatoes and then the other half of the cookies we made for the "Bake-Off" competition (better luck next year...). The wristbands were to identify who had paid their dollar to take part in the festivities. Laura and I thought they were so cool we wore them all day on Monday, too. We looked like rockstars.
We only stayed at the shindig for an hour because we had some errands to take care of, but we actually met people that live near us. This has not been something our house has been particularly good at since we moved in. I sometimes wonder if we don't try hard enough to meet those who live around us or if the folks in our neighborhood really enjoy their privacy or both. Whatever the case, I don't think I recognized a single person beyond the two families that go to church with us. Hopefully that will begin to change and we'll get to know the community around us a little better. We'll at least know a few more faces now.
This evening we had a spur-of-the-moment community-building activity. After sweating through some deliciously spicy chips and homemade salsa (courtesy of Chef Katie) we decided to turn back the clock and become elementary-aged firefly hunters. Armed with glass jars we set out to create super cool lightning bug lanterns. I'm sure the view from our neighbors' houses was quite comical as we galavanted gleefully around the front yard then wove our way down to the park. There was even some company for us as two or three white-tailed deer stopped to hang out about 25 meters from where we had paused to count our intermittently luminous captives. Urban deer are around people enough that it generally doesn't phase them to be a couple dozen yards away. The mosquitoes were really glad we stopped to watch the deer, too. Stupid blood-sucking bugs.
We retreated back to our abode and set our firefly jars on the dining room table. We were hoping that the bugs might be more active with their blinking if they were around more of their own kind; after all, fireflies light up because they're looking for a date. There was one that put on a great show, climbing all over the inside of its jar, but the others were fairly disinterested in the local dating scene. Laura thought she might entice them with some music from her iPod. As romantic as it was and irregardless of Laura disc jockeying skillz, they still didn't really seem to care much for their fellow denizens. That is, until we discovered that there were some jazz lovers in our jars. Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald crooned out "Cheek to Cheek" and we finally got a few more to respond. It may have coincided with us trying to make them think our cell phones were huge fireflies, but I'd like to think it was the music.
After a few more minutes of firefly speed dating and cultural enlightenment, we set them free in our back yard. There was nothing intentional about planning for the firefly hunt but it was a great feeling of being comfortable in our own skins as we chased bugs in our pajamas down the street.
Intentional community is good; unintentional community might be even better.
P.S. As lovely as Katie's message was last week, I don't think our mockingbird friend has Internet access. Bummer. If you see our avian amigo, please let the featherbrained Figaro know what's going on.
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