My Neighborhood My City

Upon being asked about my neighborhood I found that I had trouble defining what neighborhood meant to me. Is it the place where I rest my head at night? Would it be the place I spend most of my time? Or, perhaps neighborhood is a place where you find rest and comfort. But in the end the answers to those questions did not satisfy me.

So what is neighborhood to me? As a twenty-one year old college student I find this question troubling. I have moved several times since high school from Seattle to Montana then a summer in the US. Virgin Islands, back to Montana, and here I am residing in Spokane Washington. Thou I live in a small basic apartment building now I am moving in a few weeks to a different part of Spokane. I hope you can see now why defining neighborhood is hard for me, a frequent mover.  I never stay in a place long enough to build a community and to create my neighborhood.

However, this past weekend I found myself walking around downtown Spokane with a friend and I realized that the city is my neighborhood. I saw the zeal of angry protesters and thou I didn’t understand fully what they were protesting for I was smiling because I was proud to be part of a passionate city. For the first time in a long time I felt like I was where I should be. I was no longer a wonderer but in a communal environment. I made friends, I have grown closer to my family, and I find that I am building my adult life, here. The scars of my past do not haunt me here and I am free to be the “me” I was always afraid be.  I have lived in the city of Spokane for almost a year and I can already tell that though I may switch apartments from time to time I wont be leaving Spokane for a while. While unrestricted, and free to do as I please, I have chosen to restrict myself to a place that I perhaps belong, at least for now.

The apartment I am at now is on the corner of one of the most dominant streets in the city, Division. I live behind a grocery store, my building is adjacent to a fire station, and I am in walking distance to a family park, the local Costco, and my favorite place to eat Noodle Express. I see people walking down the street and they smile or they look down but either way I feel close to them in some small way because I know that we are sharing more then just a walking place but a city and a home.

At times I will place my ear buds in and listen to my IPod while walking around the area. The church across the street usually has a steady flow of bodies coming in and out. On Thursday nights it’s a pack of giggling middle-aged women that must be leaving a Bible study.  A few blocks down the road is an elementary school and last night I saw a preteen girl face plant off her scooter I stopped to see if she was okay but by that time she was happy-go-lucky again and scooting along and a chuckle came from my lips as I shook my head. The fire station is always blaring the sound of rescue and behind the grocery store is usually a stack of busted shopping carts in pills of creative looking garbage.  

Maybe neighborhood is not that standard assumption that it is the houses around us or the white picket fence perhaps it is simply just where you are at when your restless heart begins settle. And here it is fall and the leaves and turning there colors and crumbling to the damp cold ground and I could not imagine being anywhere else. I am content.