I don’t know about where you live, but around here, these warm days become very social, sometimes purposefully and other times in more happenstance ways. Maybe New England’s four distinct seasons have something to do with it, as in we are warm now and can hang outside in a way wintertime naturally discourages. Our neighborhood seems newly friendly each spring as we rediscover the fine folks who spent the winter hibernating (not so much us; we walk to school whatever the weather and as a result, we do maintain a few of those neighborly connections year-round, but in the wintertime, we are limited to rushed salutations in passing).
Our neighbors Patsy and Ted and daughters have a yard on a gently rolling hill with a stage (imagine treehouse-meets-raised wooden-platform). What else to do but throw a neighborhood talent show (cum potluck)?
The neighborhood listserve makes organizing this kind of gathering pretty darn easy. Over the years, I’ve amassed an email list for a weekly pick-up soccer game in the ‘hood, simply a group of families—no RSVP necessary—playing soccer on Sunday mornings, parents and kids together. That game has included babies on hips, preschoolers clinging to mamas’ legs (yes, slowing their pace), determined young players, parents encouraging passing rather than grandstanding, ‘tweens and teens and younger adults, people in great shape or not very good shape, you name it. We’ve had babies to grandparents on the field. Our express goal: friendly fun. There is not a cutthroat, winner-takes-all vibe (more like Ultimate Frisbee’s dedication to the “spirit of the game”). I like how pick-up has become a tiny institution of an unofficial sort. The most devoted participants keep playing, often till snow flies.
Back to talent, though: I wandered over with some other neighbors collected along the way, and bearing our family’s signature potluck offering: popcorn. We’ve got a terrific lightweight bowl (red faux wood) that holds a lot of popcorn. Regardless of the fact that popcorn is less fabulous than say, rhubarb mango cake or cucumber salad, it always disappears, which of course paves the way to bring it to the next potluck. That said the last potluck we’d attended—to which we brought a green salad and given that it’s tons of greens-at-farm-share-season, weren’t alone in doing so—someone brought popcorn made from corn grown in their own garden to which nutritional yeast, salt and thyme were added (dee-licious). At the talent show potluck party we arrived to hear a young kid, maybe six or so, singing onstage. People were sprawled out on chairs and blankets and the beautiful stonewall, almost draped along the grassy-sloped yard, as if the guests belonged in a somewhat romantic painting.
Patsy and Ted told me beforehand that they were inspired by the end-of-summer party we co-host with our nearest neighbors. Unofficially dubbed our Not Labor Day Not Block Party (although sometimes the party does fall on Labor Day), we think of it that way because while we do manage to include people on the block, ours is quite a long street not so conducive to a straight up block party, and we in the middle—our street makes a ‘T’ with another—relate equally to people living just off our street proper. Patsy and Ted’s inspiration wasn’t so much the ragtag nature of invitees (we invite folks not quite on or near the block and once you’ve come to a party, you tend to be invited forevermore); it was the band. Near-neighbor, Louis, who started tenth grade just around Labor Day this past year, had a band and the band played a set and they were most excellent (even drawing a couple of adoring fans) and it was just so much fun to hear them (and to dance) that at first Patsy and Ted thought about simply inviting the band to play their party. They moved on to the talent show idea from there and a truly delightful late afternoon was all of ours.
As for my four kids, they pretty much represented the range of their generation: my eldest performed (he recited a Lewis Carroll poem, quite artfully). My seven year-old played chase for hours and hours as far as I could tell. My toddler jumped from the stonewall, shared watermelon and popcorn with her pal, Arella, and sat on a tiny chair listening raptly to a slightly older child than her sing one of her most favorite songs, Twinkle Twinkle. And my twelve year-old swung in at the end, having been at another (peer’s) party (ah, the ‘tween years, they are here).
Never mind that we have a super talented neighborhood (insert Garrison Keillor here; our children are “above average,” obviously). What made the talent portion of the event so lovely was this: from kindergarten and younger to adults, everyone gave great performances of a variety of kinds (that’s to say, brave, cute, knock-your-socks-off, and melt-your-heart were all thoroughly represented).
I hope that the neighborhood talent show becomes a capital letter event like our Not Labor Day Not Block Party.
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Beyond talent or potluck elements what I left feeling was truly fortunate to have such terrific neighbors, from the good friends to the longtime acquaintances to the just-met-on-Saturday folks. We didn’t really understand where we’d moved (although it was just three blocks from the house we lived in before) when we arrived on our street thirteen years ago. We landed in a real neighborhood, in a small city that somehow seems to do friendship and community especially sweetly. We might have had some inkling, but we really didn’t get it. Now, we do, and I am exceedingly grateful.
