I watched To Kill A Mockingbird this afternoon. I know it’s sort of an idealized version of a small community, but it made me long for things as they must only have seemed in my mind. I felt nostalgic, but in ways I’m not sure were real. I can remember talking to neighbors as a kid, riding my bike down to Rosewood Hills Shopping Center, going into stores to buy candy. The community size hasn’t changed, but it felt much more alive—teeming with people. I do assume it was my imagination or a combination of imagination and memory, but I was reminded of something that seemed nice at the time.
And I don’t think I am just making that up. We lived three streets from my grandparents’ and their house was as close from school, so sometimes I liked to walk there instead; afternoon TV felt different there in ways I cannot articulate. The best I can do is to say that it was as if the afternoon’s dust particles were still suspended in the beams of sunlight coming in through the windows and the house was both quiet like it was on days when you were home sick, and also loud like Christmas. I’d see several neighbors in the few street’s walk there. And next door, there’d be trombone music spilling out of a bedroom window, which we’d hear as we walked through the backyards of the fenceless neighborhood. Whoever was practicing never did seem to get very good at that instrument, but it didn’t matter. That music was just part of some of my days, and a part of the neighborhood. You don’t hear those things anymore, or at least I never do. Maybe I need to be a kid walking through other people’s yards, but I don’t see people outside of their homes as often. Even the parks feel a little lonely.
To Kill A Mockingbird shows as much of a negative to that as it does positives of course. The whole premise of the story is how a small town can be filled with small minds, but I still came away from it feeling like I had lost something.
I don’t know if that feeling persists everywhere. Even in my other grandma’s neighborhood, as a kid I would see everyone doing things outside. I’m going to be visiting there soon. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get a sense of it, but I’m fully expecting to find that people are shut up in their homes, devices in hand. I think change is good, and I think having computers always in hand is a good thing, but it’s sad to have a sense of loss when I think about community. But maybe it’s just me.
[Walk #115]
