 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|
||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
Walking into TownSeptember 14, 2005 Sitting on the second-from-bottommost (that looks almost too weird to be written down) step, I pulled on my socks and hiking boots, Rhodry's tail brushing back and forth across my knees. My "foyer" is easily crowded, being about three feet not-quite-square and permanently occupied by my repertoire of boots for all weathers and occasions. I looped Rhodry's leash around my neck, tucked the just-completed editing job under my arm, and opened the front door. Perfect timing: Martha from around the block was just passing by with her small terrier, Gracie. Rhodry made a beeline for Martha and sat down on the pavement, the epitome of anticipation.. She counted out four Gracie-size biscuits, which Rhodry ate, one, two, three, four. Martha's custom is four biscuits, no more, no less, but Rhodry isn't into numbers and his hope springs eternal. We exchanged pleasantries about the weather, then Martha and Gracie headed up the road and Rhodry and I headed down, toward Vineyard Haven and the post office. We said hi to Mary, who was getting into her car outside her house, then waved to Stan, who was sitting in his white pickup talking to another neighbor. We probably waved, nodded, or spoke to another half-dozen people before we got down to Lagoon Pond Road, the back way into the Five Corners intersection and, just before it, the parking lot shared by the Vineyard Haven post office and the indispensable Cumberland Farms convenience store. We were nearly there when a woman asked if this was the way to "that little mall, I guess it is, with the coffee shop?" In the direction she was heading, there's nothing whatsoever of a commercial nature, but I was pretty sure I knew what she was looking for: "You mean the Tisbury Marketplace? It's sort of a horseshoe-shaped mini-mall?" Bingo -- the "coffee shop" was the Daily Grind, where, I told her, my writers' group meets for breakfast most Thursday mornings. We agreed that the coffee there is especially excellent. She'd left her husband at the Steamship Authority terminal to change a reservation; I gave directions, commiserating about the general confusingness of Five Corners, and she hurried on, anxious lest her husband get to the coffee shop before she did and wonder where she was. If you're ever trying to elude pursuers and you lack the ability to cast a glamour over their eyes and magically flatten their tires, direct them through Five Corners. It might bamboozle them long enough for you to change into your secret identity or duck down an alley somewhere. Martha's daughter Jennifer was coming out of the p.o. as I headed in; I directed her toward Rhodry, who was parked in the shade. My parcel duly committed to Express Mail, I stopped by Cumby's for a big pack of Doublemint and an almond Snickers. As I was unhitching Rhodry from the handy concrete post, a woman admired my T-shirt: a great dragon rampant in greens and blues with a fierce expression and bright red tongue. I said I'd had it for well over 20 years; she was even more impressed by the quality of the colors. We agreed that line-drying was best when laundering T-shirts. Before Rhodry and I reached the sidewalk, we met Jim, a former colleague and fellow chorister. "Good to be singing again, eh?" I said as we passed each other; "You bet," he said, over his shoulder. On the way home, via the EduComp parking lot, Veterans Park, and Causeway Road, I waved or called to a couple more people. The summer tide has receded enough to reveal a few more familiar faces. Whew. I guess I survived another one. Of course I couldn't leave it there: I was still half an uphill mile from home and, as nearly everyone I know will tell you, I think too much. I like waving and nodding and exchanging a few words with people between here and there and everywhere else. Most of them are casual acquaintances: we've got something in common -- dogs, horses, friends, a bit of history -- but not a whole lot (or maybe we do, but circumstances haven't yet encouraged us to figure it out). All those little recognitions help create the feeling of neighborliness that makes a place pleasant to live in -- a better place than one where everyone's frayed at the edges or too guarded to meet anyone else's eye, or where most people arrived within the last week so no one recognizes them and they recognize no one. But that's not enough. "Pleasant" isn't enough. As I walked up the long hill, I thought of the "Invisible Hand" -- not so much Adam Smith's version as the use to which the concept is put by those who read Smith rather selectively: the corporate Republicans who are currently running the country, for instance, and economists with Milton Friedman in their intellectual pedigree. The Invisible Hand refers to the way market economies allocate resources. Smith didn't believe for an instant that this Hand should be allowed to function without human guidance. (Aha, you say; I bet we're coming around to that social/antisocial engineering thing again. Damn, you're way ahead of me!) What's the connection? Not sure, but I'm sure there is one. Left to its own devices, the market alone will not sustain democracy; a myriad of pleasant interactions among neighbors fosters community but cannot alone create it. I'll let you know as soon as I figure it out. (How is blogging like tightrope-walking without a safety net?)
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
Home - Writing - Editing - About Susanna - Bloggery - Articles - Poems - Contact Copyright ©
Susanna J. Sturgis. All rights reserved. |
||||