August is a month that doesn’t get a lot of attention.
May ends, and summer begins, with Memorial Day. June has Flag Day and the summer solstice. It’s chock-full of weddings and graduations. July — full summer — starts on the 4th, Independence Day. Then there’s a long drought of holidays until September when it’s Labor Day and all of a sudden you have to put away your white shoes and find your penny loafers or whatever’s in style for Back to School.
August is known for phenomena based on a mash-up of weather and astronomy. The dog days, so sultry your Labradoodle won’t go for a walk? Blame Sirius, the Dog Star. The sky is falling? It’s the Persiads meteor shower, silly. The eighth month has a pretty empty dance card.
But in case you missed it, Tuesday was National Night Out.
This annual event was originally held in 1984, on the first Tuesday of August. People turned on their porch lights and banged on pots and pans. It was an era of Neighborhood Watch Groups. The idea was to coax people out from behind their doors. To deter crime, it helps to know who lives where and what their names are. You can keep an eye out, in a non-creepy way if there’s a sticker on your front window that attests to your alertness.
Potlucks, barbecues, and picnics offer an opportunity to connect. Who are the people in your neighborhood? Here is a chance to find out.
I don’t know how widely National Night Out is observed. In Minnesota, it can be a big deal. Our long winters are isolating. Not everyone belongs to a book club. Firefighters and police officers make the rounds in their impressive vehicles. Kids are awed; grownups, reassured. Our city is safe. Budget cuts haven’t yet begun to sting.
And it’s summer. Don’t waste it.
In my neighborhood, here’s how it works:
A few volunteers coordinate things in advance. This can be dicey. For example, your special dish is potato salad. Everyone expects to find it on the table at any potluck at which you are present. But you live on the odd-numbered side of the street. The self-appointed event organizer announces that the even-numbered residents will bring salads and hot dishes; the odd- , desserts. Next year, “we” will switch.
You’re about to say, Do we really need more sugar? Aren’t we sweet enough? because your mom always said that but the event organizer stands, everyone else stands, meeting’s over, and to speak up would be pointless.
So what if yin and yang aren’t balanced, you think. You’ll bring your potato salad anyway. National Night Out is not the time to incite rioting in the streets just because your signature dish is AWOL.
But the day gets ahead of you. On Tuesday afternoon, you open two cans of baked beans and dress them up, tossing in this and that as you’ve been doing for years. You’ve perfected the dish, as evidenced by the fact that everyone in the family will eat it. But: canned beans! Definitely sneak them onto the table and walk away.
Then, you realize that you’ve saved yourself a trip to the one grocery store that sells the brand of mustard you need for the potato salad. There is no substitute. But the price has crept up. Doubled. It may be time to release your grip on perfection.
At 4:30, I peek out the front window. No one in sight. Did I mess up the date? No, there’s Dan, carrying sawhorses to block traffic at the intersection. At 5:00, Susie and Jane set up tables. Half an hour later, I cross the street with two packages of brats and a casserole dish.
“Hi, Mary!” the event organizer calls. Several women look up. In majority-Catholic St. Paul, there are four Marys, a Mary Ann, and a Maryann on our block. The event organizer is looking at me.
“You must have a white cat,” she says. I look down. My black T-shirt is covered in Mini’s fur. “Maybe not the best thing to wear around food?”
I look up. Behind her, an eye-roll and suppressed laughter. Three people have brought their dogs.
“You’re right. Thanks for setting me straight.”
I don’t say the thing that popped into my head: But I love my cat so much I’m wearing her!
Instead, I hang my head. Shuffle home. When I return with ginger beer and a fold-up camp chair, I’m wearing a different black T-shirt. This one’s immaculate, never worn. Before he died, my husband bought it for me from the Metropolitan museum store. On the front is an outline, in shiny gold, of the Greek goddess Artemis. She’s drawing her bow. I don’t know what, or who, she’s aiming at.
The crowd gets bigger.
Dan has delivered flyers to dozens of households on adjacent streets. About a hundred neighbors show up. The crowd is even larger than in previous years, when we had bands and food trucks. People aren’t here to party. They want community.
I meet Patrick. “Good Irish Catholic name,” I say. “I’m a stealth Lutheran.” We agree that it’s sad that the local parish was forced to close their school after decades of educating most of the neighborhood’s children. I miss seeing the red polo shirts that designated St. Marks’ students, made them stand out like cardinals.
Mary from the corner tells me that the previous owner of my house just died. “I’ve got the obit,” she says. “It’s what you’d expect.”
My husband and I bought our house in 1986. Over the years, we’ve heard doors slam, saw shimmering, faceless figures, felt chilled in 90-degree weather: the usual paranormal stuff. About a month ago, things started up anew. Lights turned on or off, windows closed or opened, pillows thrown, all in my presence and without Alexa’s command. My name, spoken in a a high laughing voice I don’t recognize.
“When did she die?” I ask, knowing the answer.
“July 1. Says she requested ‘no services be held.’ ”
“I’ll light a candle.” I think of the sins she’d committed against the house. How long it took to undo them. “Do you know of a good exorcist?”
Leah, home from college, pours liquid into a soap bubble machine. (These exist, another single-purpose object designed to facilitate the prime directive: buy things for your kids that are really for yourself.) A toddler holds up a slice of watermelon to a bubble drifting by. It pops, covering the watermelon in bubble soap.
Pointy things are what you use to pop soap bubbles. Watermelon slice = pointy thing, but also = good to eat, unless (taste = YUCK) covered in soap bubble. What to do? Hold up watermelon slice. Blow on it. No soap bubble. Give to Mom. Get new watermelon slice. Repeat 1x? 2x? (Looks at Mom.) Mom shakes head = no.
Mom is major source of funding + Chief Science Officer. Is/is not conflict of interest? Where’s Dad? Over there, holding hot dog, talking to other dads. Grab leg, test for the millionth x the most important hypothesis of all. Yes! Oh brave new messy, sticky, glorious world!
Gravity works.
Dusk descends. Folks move from their small groups, mingle, disperse. A good evening. Politics set aside; talk was of of concerts and travel, roofs, gutters, and gardens. Gardens in the neighborhood — except for mine, I can’t keep up — are lush and well-tended.
We’re hungry for beauty. Gardens are a gift to the souls of those who plant them and those who experience them. We walk past the echinaceas and milkweed, clumps of prairie grass, hostas and clematis and leopard lilies, species not yet decimated by the marauding beetles and borers riding the back of climate change. Small plants survive, shielded by large ones.
It’s time for bike races. It doesn’t matter who wins. We think of the children who grew up in these century-old houses. Some, like mine, are in their thirties and forties, the age of these new parents. There was a long dearth of small kids. But they’ve returned. We shout and applaud. Everyone wins.
Sparklers. Bedtime tears. The street lamps come on.
I balance empty dishes — the beans are gone! — and my chair up the front steps. Inside, I hear nothing at first. Then Mini’s arthritic legs, navigating the stairs. Small, careful thumps. Her dish is empty. I get the Fancy Feast. Down to one can. Mini is 22 years old, with the appetite of a kitten about to double her weight.
“The ghost must have eaten your dinner,” I say, stroking her back as she jaws the soft food. “She’s a hungry ghost.”
Her long hair, once so silky, is dull. The drab undercoat shows through. It is nature’s way of protecting her, in her last days, from predators.
She wants my company now, all the time. I’m her safe place.
Ghosts. She knew, when he didn’t come back from the hospice, that my husband was gone. That was more than two years ago.
She is still my safe place.
Last time, I promised you Part Two of my post on broken friendships. After days of work, I found that I was carrying burning coals to a place they did not belong: my heart. My hope, when I post this story, is to be honest and kind. You can read Part One here.
With love,
Mary xo
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Out of all of this lovely piece, Mary, what sticks in my head is this: "I think of the sins she’d committed against the house. How long it took to undo them." As a serial "re-storyer of houses, I feel those two sentences in my bones. Thank you for loving the house, for bringing your beans to the neighborhood, for keeping the memory of your husband close, and for tending Mimi with love. May the previous owner's spirit move on now!
That's about the loneliest block party for a widow I can think of. And the organizer could've been a tad more tactful and just let it go about the cat hair. Pardon me, I've become a recluse because of such people. Bless you for getting through it and prevailing. Hope the ghost becomes a friendly companion over time. And your lovely cat. Prayers for her for a peaceful, painless exit in her sleep some years hence. We didn't celebrate National Night Out Day but our community has lots of festivals, picnics of special groups, and events. Thirsty Thursdays is a wine walk once a month to introduce people to shops along the main drag. There's a lot of socializing of various kinds in my town. Even shopping at Walmart can be social in its own weird way. Perhaps we need to bring back front porches again.