On Pruning

Thoughts on sh*tty neighbors, my forsythia, raccoon latrines, and blooming.

Before we moved in, our house was the one with shitty neighbors. And I mean that quite literally. After a week or so of moving in, we noticed what we thought were dirt clods all over the yard. That is, until my youngest tracked it in. The foul smell erupted from his sneakers, making our entryway extraordinarily pungent. I swear you could see the olive-green smell lines coming off his shoes, which matched the walls we desperately wanted to paint at the time.

As it turned out, the previous owners left us their dogs’ waste all over the yard. And when I mean all over the yard, I mean the entire expanse. We spent hours cleaning up probably months of poop from someone else’s pets.

I wish that were the end of it. As time passed and we got to know our surrounding neighbors, they told us how these same owners were harsh, rude, judgmental, and, worst of all, completely isolationist. They kept themselves and made sure you kept off their lawn—which I wish they would have told us.

***

Now that we’re settled in our home, we’ve made drastic changes, like ripping out floors (splintered from their dogs’ nails), replacing a broken shower door (they refused to fix it), changing light fixtures, paint, and more. We’re doing the same with our neighbors.

However, going to Menards and Home Depot a million times is much easier than building relationships with neighbors. But let me tell you about my neighbor to our left.

He was eager to say hello on the first clear fall day. He reminds my kids of their grandparents—and here’s the thing: I’ve learned that he and his wife are incredible at that one specific job. In time, we brought treats and wine and exchanged hellos at our mailboxes.

Once, he knocked on the door and wanted us to grab his paper over the weekend—a tradition we kept because he and his wife wanted to see their grandson play college football in another state. We happily said yes. Our younger two would grab his paper and eye the comics. After their third weekend gone, my youngest worked up the courage to ask for the comics.

My neighbor has since saved every comic and gifted it to our kids. That comics pile is precious.

***

We thought we cleaned up all of the poop—the end—no more smell. But then we started noticing new piles in the weirdest places...and I mean, these piles were rather large. So much so that I turned to my middle schooler and said, “You didn’t…did you?” (I didn’t say I was a perfect parent, just an okay neighbor).

Mortified, my middle schooler retorted back with a “BRUH.”

I thought he responded appropriately. Upon further investigation and a lot of Google searches, we found a new pile outside of said middle schooler’s window (on the second floor…), it turns out that dog poop attracted raccoons.

Hello, new trash panda neighbors.

What had happened was that the same previous owners hid a compost bin behind my unwieldy and overgrown forsythia. It became a buffet for the raccoons who decided to party, poop, leave, and then come back again when we weren’t looking.

So now we had to take two improperly composted bins to the dump because the raccoon party was over.

***

In time, we would find those neighbors with political signs that made me uncomfortable—the same neighbors like the one lady who found my address when I became a civil rights commissioner for my last city.

Before we moved, I hosted a goodbye driveway hangout with my neighbors I was close to, only for the party to be crashed by this one particular woman. She looked at my yard and asked me if I lived there.

Confused and a little alarmed, I avoided her question. But it didn’t matter anyway—she started talking about another neighbor and her family who lived down the street. She went on a tirade about immigrants and why that family didn’t belong. She wanted me, a lowly commissioner, to do something about it.

For one thing, I wouldn’t do what she asked because she was talking about my friend. But for another, she was barking up the wrong tree at another immigrant. I was grateful that we were moving next month.

But the “happily voted for a felon” sign in a neighbor’s yard in my new neighborhood placed me on just as high of an alert. For one, several kids walk past that sign on the way to school. And again, what are you trying to prove by placing that at your front doorstep?

That was the day I decided I needed to be open. From October to November, we flew our Mexican flag outside our house. Another neighbor came up—he was grateful to see another Mexican family on the same cul-de-sac. We shared sweet bread and laughs.

***

I wondered why my forsythia hadn’t bloomed months after we moved in. I knew it looked unkept, but surely, some flowers would erupt. But no—nothing but green leaves. Another quick Google search revealed that you can begin pruning in late spring.

That’s what I did—pruned the living daylights out of that forsythia.

***

It’s spring again. It bloomed.

***

We’ve been here for well over a year. I frequently text my friend who lives across the park and the others the next street over. Our kids run back and forth between our houses.

I now love walking into my house with its welcoming bench.

My newly trellised climbing roses are just turning green. I see buds on the lilacs. The daffodils have exploded. And my favorite peonies are roaring back with excitement—all products of blooming.

My yard is a little dirty, and we still track mud inside. I don’t say hi enough, and I definitely am quick to judge. But I think that takes a little pruning—because who wants to be the shitty neighbor?

---

Blooming takes
sh*tty soil
with its nutrients
to soak up
what the 
blossoms
need
to expand
their roots
and grow
so they can
burst into
a wild beauty.

---

Hello again! Happy April showers and blooms—Here are some happy little delights that I hope you’ll appreciate.

• When I say Zach and I are going to a lot of concerts this summer—I mean I’m trying to get my hands on concert tickets ALL THE TIME. There’s only one band on this list that I don’t have tickets to…yet. (I’m especially excited about Glass Animals—their entire album is SO good.)

• I started watching One Day on Netflix, and Zach popped in and started watching it with me. It’s devastatingly romantic and tragic all at once, but we love this story as a biracial couple.

• Speaking of

  David Farrier
  from last month, Zach was on his Quiverfull episode. But I’m also partial to his next episode because having grown up undocumented, I believe it’s important to understand the significance of how we talk about immigration.

• My friends

  Callie R. Feyen
  and
  molly flinkman
  devastated me this month with their essays. Read them here and here, respectively.

• This reel made me laugh SO hard because this is life with teen boys.

Until next time, friends 💕