Paved with Good Intentions

When I’d mention, by name, the street I used to live on, the response would inevitably be: good street.

People—people whose authority was based on say, living nearby for a while—spoke the words with a knowing confidence. Sometimes they nodded.

But it wasn’t a good street. Swarthmore, a single block long, was bookended by a library to the south and a park to the north — good indeed! The houses were historic and grand, the gardens cared for. (The children many, the cars expensive, the mortgages high.…) But neighbourly? No. At least not for me.

It wasn’t the fault of the residents, the street was unfriendly by design. The houses were closely knit, side by side, but set back deep so deep that the path from sidewalk to front door felt like a runway. A place you were more likely to be watched than greeted. But mostly people came and went by car. 

Anyone who happened to linger in the driveway or nosily peering out from the living room window bays could look up or down the hill and see who was unloading their car — Costco, hockey bags — or yelling at their kids in the driveway. 

There might be gardeners digging or masons repointing, but domestic life happened inside and on the porches and pocket-sized yards in the back. It was as if all these houses were facing backwards, that narrow expanse of land in front too exposed to feel free. A fine place for a Range Rover but not a kiddie pool. Kiddie pools went in the back. Kiddies, too. 

The lots were so deep you couldn’t make eye-contact from the sidewalk with someone on the front stoop. Instead, folks yelled at each other. Niceties — but shouted. BEAUTIFUL DAY! ‘GARDEN LOOKS GOOD! NICE TO SEE YOU! 

Without brushing by a neighbor on the sidewalk, not many soft words were exchanged. So, you go on knowing vaguely the coming and goings of your neighbours: the family that leaves the house with a crying younger brother for 6:15am hockey. The one whose sullen teenagers, otherwise never seen, once unloaded mulch. A taxi delivering visiting grandparents, an obsessive gardener. But there’s no chance to pick up rolling oranges from the broken shopping bag or kick a soccer ball back to a kid in the yard. No blast of perfume from someone running out of the house late. Mostly it’s just neighbours incessantly packing and unpacking their cars. Sisyphus in suburbia.

The summer we renovated I finally received some visitors. Salivating with curiosity, they accepted a tour of the kitchen and heard a bit of our story. Americans. Yes, we like it here and hope to stay. One one after another recited, “we’ll have to have you over for drinks,” as naturally as saying you’re welcome after thanks! But when the moving trucks returned a year and change later, this time to take just my stuff away, they watched us wistfully. Those who got within shouting distance lamented, we never got around to inviting you over. 

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When I first visited the street to which I would move, I understood a lot from the full-size hockey net taking up one in-demand on-street parking spot. At plow season it would be hauled into a front garden, but until then, it was street furniture, a snub to cars, and maybe even an affront to driving in general. It was the priorities of rue Underwood laid bare.

At #83, kids bikes and scooters are strewn in the vinca vine. There’s chalk on the sidewalk there, too: hopscotch grids, hearts and rainbows. #57 washes his car out front monthly; his kids play hockey #83 and #67. #73 has a new puppy from same breeder as #51 and #71 — those two are brothers (the dogs, not their human parents). They’re a patch of lily of the valley in the middle of the block and the caretaker doesn’t mind it when the kids pick it. 

Next door to me, #59, the small girls sometimes pull a tiny foam sofa onto the stoop and it becomes hard leave without answering their questions. In the morning early, two kids from this block and one through the laneway meet at the alley to take the bus together. Underwood is intimate. 

Soon after I moved in, the folks at the end of the block invited us neighbours for wine in their garden. Everyone arrived via the back laneway through their entrance shrouded by ivy. That night, my first there, was just another for the others. They’d been doing it for 20 years. The next time it happened, an old neighbor joined; he’d moved away years ago but wasn’t kicked out of the neighborhoood group chat — he never left on his own either. 

It’s row houses on Underwood, every single one attached. A dozen steep wooden steps lead up to the door while the street has green space enough to hold one big tree or a single kiddie pool — and it often does. The back is parking or parking-turned-terrace. There’s compost bins, trash cans and trees and aging wooden balconies overhead. On Underwood, life spills out the front and back, it can’t be held inside—or maybe it doesn’t want to. 

Up on my back balcony, I can holler down to the neighbours on the laneway but I don’t. When you live so close, there’s no need to yell.