Community

Yesterday I volunteered to sweep, pick up and shovel in my neighborhood as part of an annual Boston-wide clean-up campaign. I shared the work along a stretch of a busy 4-lane road with two neighbors who pronounced me a "baby" at 63. Marcia and Mike may be at least ten years my senior.

 

Our white-haired team worked efficiently. Marcia raked. Mike had equipment and room for filled garbage bags in his station wagon. Mike and I wielded a shovels to gather Marcia's piles of dead leaves, broken bottles and pieces of damaged cars. We did well. Our patch was obviously improved by our efforts.

 

Much is said about community. In my own world, I often refer to the gay community, the humanist community and the "community" of  online social networks. But yesterday I was really participating in community, an actual process of being together in a shared place for a shared purpose.

 

The reactions of those who passed us in cars and on foot were interesting. Two young sagger-clad hip-hoppers passed us and made fun of us loudly between them. A man in a car with open windows turned up his already-too-loud salsa music as I cleared the gutter next to his car which was idling at a stop light. An elderly woman, who looked like a retired and widowed dancer with ballet-bun hair and black clothes, purposefully gathered some weeds from a nearby front yard and brought them to our barrel like a votive offering. I said, "Thank you." She proudly said, "De nada." A spry little man on a bench in front of a store smiled and said, "Thanks for helping the neighborhood."

 

The definition of the inside and outside of our neighborhood became clearer. The passers-through and inhabitants observed us very differently. The sense that I was doing what I was doing for both groups was satisfying. This was truly a civilized action, a contribution to my urban world, whether appreciated or not by individuals in it.