community

we love our little piece of the "old tree" part of town. it is mostly quiet {save for the recent WyoTech admits that terrify us with their noisy engines & jacked up pick-ups} & our neighbors are polite. but we only know one household well, the rest just by name. being the somewhat shy folks that we are, we haven't hosted any block parties at our place yet, although i've been meaning to. last night seemed to change that.

we were in a bad place after receiving tragic news about losing someone we love. although the christmas tree was lit & the ornaments were sparkling, when the credits rolled for "national lampoon's christmas vacation" we sat around feeling mournful & empty. a lot of feelings of where-do-we-go-from-here & what's-the-point? i think brandon & i both knew it was going to be a painful evening as we processed this loss. 

suddenly we had a knock on the door from our neighbor, who happens to be the head honcho director of wyoming public radio. he was wearing his beat-up leather jacket, with his thick round beat poet glasses, & a black beret. he handed over a stack of CDs & a few beers, telling as he settled on the couch that he was in a bad place & needed our company. he must have sensed we were too & felt called to pay us a visit while we were all in pain. although we have talked over the fence {home improvement style} we don't know each other well, so this was a surprise. 

he was well on his way into drunkenness, but luckily is a pleasant drunk. he gave me strict instructions about which songs to play on each album, which were mostly bob marley and jerry garcia tunes. after a bit he invited us to his house to listen to his billie holiday vinyls. he is a talented photographer & his house is adorned with his favorite photos. after a tour of the house & his record collection {which is quite extensive} i decided to head home to make dinner, inviting him back to our place for spaghetti & meatballs. when he came over he brought two incredible photographs--taken literally off of his walls!  

over dinner he grilled brandon & i on every topic imaginable: politics, children, our parents, war, religion, our thoughts on general custer, & harvey. oh how he loved harvey! it was an interesting night to say the least. 

at 11PM we were exhausted & desperately wanting to head to bed. we boxed up his unfinished food & sent him on his way. collapsing into bed we both wondered if the past 5 hours were imagined. but we felt grateful that a neighbor we barely know felt comfortable to come to our house when he needed to be lifted out his sadness. his timing couldn't have been better.