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| A former residence |
A few years ago, a neighbour from hell moved in next door. Parties at all hours of the night, people constantly coming and going accompanied by the continuous clinking of carry-outs in the early morning - along with shouting, singing, stomping, screaming, etc. Luckily, he's now gone and a nice, respectable young couple have taken up residence.
They've now been in the house for almost five years, but, to me, it seems as if they only moved in fairly recently. This has led me to consider the following curious concept which has recently crept into my consciousness.
There have been a couple of houses in my lifetime in which we lived for only four years, plus one we occupied for a mere 15 months, and despite it seeming to me as if we lived in each of those houses for a good long stretch, I've now started to wonder if, to our neighbours at the time, it seemed as if we were merely a temporary blip in their everyday lives.
If my new neighbours' nearly five-year-occupancy seems far less to me than it is, then it stands to reason that the almost similar short periods in which my family resided in some houses may likewise have appeared to others to be terms of no consequence. Are we remembered by name by those we lived next to, or are we dimly-recalled shadows that barely register in the histories of some of the areas we stayed?
It's strange to look back on my relatively short time in those places, and to realise that, although they're well-established, carved-in-stone 'epochs' in my life - the details of which are firmly entrenched in my memory - to those neighbours who preceded us and remained long past my family's departure, our time there may be only brief, nearly forgotten interludes in their overall recollections of events.
Makes you wonder eh? (Nah, probably not. It does with me though.)
It's all down to the fact to the fact that the older you get - the faster time travels. Those 15 months really were a long time to your younger self. Remember, as a kid, how long itwas between Christmases? Now, it's ALWAYS Christmas!
ReplyDeleteI was only recently thinking that our own "new" neighbours have been here nearly 20 years! And yet I still wonder if they've settled in yet!
As to who remembers you and who doesn't- everybody's brain is different in what it chooses important to store. The likes of you and ( to a lesser degree ) myself are BLESSED to have these memories of the past. Others, like my own brother, are not so fortunate. I put my own memory down to a by- product of my O.C.D.
But, if the 2 go hand-in-hand, then I'll keep the illness, thank you very much!!
I must confess that I sometimes wonder who's happier - someone who never looks back, or someone who is always savouring the magic of yesterday. There's advantages and disadvantages in both outlooks, I suspect.
DeleteKid, I'd say I occupy the middle ground between those two extremes - I like looking back (I wouldn't be reading your blog otherwise) but only in a moderate way. For example I'll search YouTube for old shows or films to watch but I don't feel the need to physically own them as you do. I've just been reading e-book versions of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew but once I'd finished them I deleted both books - very interesting to read again after nearly 40 years but I've done it now, my curiosity is satisfied. Speaking for myself I think this is a less stressful way to connect with the past - I couldn't be doing with all that e-bay carry on. Sometimes I'll have a hankering to look at a gallery of comic covers from the '70s and I'll feel my nostalgic yearnings have been satisfied. With the internet our childhoods are only a few clicks away, aren't they ? But I could never be the kind of person who never looks back, is anybody like that ?
ReplyDeleteI suspect there are quite a few, CJ, but I couldn't put a number on them, percentage-wise. Some people I talk to say that they never think about the past, a few isolated incidents aside (deaths and the like). I suppose contentment with one's current state is a wonderful thing.
ReplyDeleteI probably fall into the same category as Colin (although if time travel were possible I would go back for a visit - not to stay- in a heart beat) . I enjoy looking back at the things of my youth (comics, toys, TV, sports , music etc) and for things and (more importantly) people as they were then - there is noting wrong in regularly "visiting" the past as long as you make good memoires for yourself today for your tomorrow as well.
ReplyDeleteA bit like yourself my family moved house pretty regularly (aprox' every 5 years) when I was younger but generally we moved within a relatively local area but I have to say I never really wondered about neighbours too much but its an interesting point to make - the neighbours I recall the most vividly are the ones from my early childhood ( 5 - 12 years old) but for some reason I can barely recall any neighbours since I left home and set out on my own (from about my early 20's ) I can't even recall to much about my 2nd last neighbour where I live now who only moved out about 6 years ago and yet strangely I went back home for about 5 years to stay with my mum when I was in my mid 30s (long story and best time I had in years lol) and yet I can recall my (well my mums) neighbours then and that's about 20 years ago now, maybe that says more about folk my mums age being more sociable and talking to neighbours more than we do now (although I do chat to some of my neighbours) .
A strange thing that happened to me about 7 years ago when I went back to the town where my first home (as a child) was (Halfway, Cambuslang - Kid will know that area) to attend a new dentist. I arrived about 20 mins too early for my appointment so parked my car and took the opportunity to go for a walk and to look at my old house and the area of my childhood (which looked for the most part the same but everything looked so much smaller than I recalled). Anyway I got chatting to an older man who asked me if I came from the town , so I told him pointing to my old flat that I used to live there a a child with my family and that we were the very first family in that flat - he asked for my name and replied that he had lived all his life but couldn't recall our my family name or the other family names of the other neighbours I knew at that time (except one that still stayed there) I always though as the first family in those flats for 5 years that we would be remembered (family name at least) by someone that lived there during the same time , have to admit I felt a bit miffed! especially as I remembered his family name .
Some interesting points there, McScotty. I suspect some of the kids my age remembered me after we had moved, but adults don't seem to function that way. Also, that old guy you mentioned may have remembered your family at one time, but his memory may have deteriorated over the years. For instance, I once revisited one of my former homes for the purpose of taking some photos of the view from my old bedroom window. (An old folks home was due to be built on the field across the road and I wanted to capture the view as it was.) The woman who lived in the house was the very woman with whom we had swapped houses back in 1972. She'd lived in both houses for around the same period (17 or 18 years), but when I showed her photos of what used to be her back garden (for nearly 20 years, remember), she asked "Where are those flats?" She was referring to the flats on the other side of the garden hedge, and I was astonished that she could've lived in a place for such a long time, but forgotten the view from her back window. In contrast, I'd moved from my old (and her 'new') house 16 years before, but it was still familiar with the view through the window - almost down to the last blade of grass.
DeleteFunny, eh?
That's a fair point re the old man Kid - I suppose if you stay in a place for a long time you actually may not see or remember the changes as they take place over the years as much as someone who left that place and has a mental picture of it as it looked at that time in the past so the changes come as a shock a bit like not recognising those around you are ageing as you see them every day and the changes are small but add up etc
ReplyDeleteThat's seems like a fair assessment of the situation, McScotty. When I lived in the house, there used to be a small, sliding door cupboard above the sink. I used to keep my white mouse (Quicksilver) in a cage above it. When I said to the woman "I see the cupboard's gone," she said "Oh, there never was a cupboard there." It had probably been gone so long that she'd simply forgotten it, but it must've been either her or her hubbie who took it down.
DeleteIt's strange how different neighbours can be - I've lived in my current house since 2002 and my neighbours on one side are a retired couple who are really friendly and always tell me to call on them if I need anything and we exchange Christmas cards etc. But my neighbour on the other side is somebody I've hardly ever talked to - I think she has lodgers but I can't even be sure of that. Once in a blue moon I take in a parcel for her (or one of her lodgers perhaps) and I get thanked but I've never received a Christmas card or anything. In the village where I grew up (about 5 miles from here) we knew all the neighbours - the whole street in fact - and it felt like a community but it's nothing like that here at my present address.
ReplyDeleteDo you give her a Christmas card, CJ? Sometimes it's you who has to take the first step. Personally, I don't mind just a polite "good morning" from most of my neighbours, without getting into a chat with them - although my immediate ones I make an exception for as they're a nice couple.
DeleteKid, I did take the first step by taking in her parcels. Anyway these days I'm much more concerned with having peaceful neighbours who don't bother me - I've got no "neighbours from Hell" thankfully. I suppose it's easier knowing all the neighbours when you're a child as you mix with the other kids and go in each others' houses.
ReplyDeleteAh, but when the postie chaps your door and asks if you'll take in a parcel, you sort of feel obliged to - and it's the postie that's placed you in that position, it's not one you volunteered for. So, really, all your neighbour 'owes' you is to take in your parcels. That's being 'neighbourly'. A Christmas card is being 'friendly'. Personally, I'd never expect a card from someone I hadn't given one to. Having said that 'though, I know what you mean.
ReplyDeleteShe also had a crucifix in the window which suggests she's a Christian so even more incentive for her to send a Christmas card to a helpful neighbour. But as I said I don't mind as long as she doesn't bother me - I think she's a lawyer or something so she's not likely to be playing loud music at 2am anyway. The house has had a For Sale sign up twice in the last 10 years and both times it was taken down again after a few months - asking too much I assume. About 8 years ago her son hanged himself in one of the rooms which would put some people off buying if they knew that !
ReplyDeleteOoh, that's scary, CJ. Might put some prospective lodgers off, too. Shame for her 'though. Maybe she wanted to escape the constant reminder of the sad occurrence, then realised that, as it was the last place she saw her son alive, it brought him closer to her. Of course, labouring under the burden of her son's death, maybe Christmas cards are the last thing on her mind.
Delete