When I was a young mother of toddler daughters, my husband and I bought the house in which I currently live. Pretty soon after, the woman next door invited me into her house for a morning of tea and cakes with the other neighbours, but only those who lived at the bottom of the street.
Mine is highest of the bottom end, built where another street intersects in a T shaped juncture in a street that meanders into the hills. It was explained to me that the people at the top didn't speak to the people at the bottom. Apparently, it was a social thing. I laughed and accepted being at the bottom of the rung.
The next part of the story is about Christmas because my husband's birthday was on Christmas day and mine is in early January. I never had a birthday party as a child. Never. Not once. Then, very soon after we married, we realised that we two, who never had birthday parties, even though we could now afford them and organise them ourselves, would be wasting our time if we tried. Everyone races out of town for the Christmas holidays.
So, I went to other peoples' parties and envied the fact that friends could celebrate their birthdays but I couldn't celebrate mine, other than with my dear ones.
So, combining the antipathy of the neighbours at each end of the street and the fact that the Christmas boy and I could never mention our birthdays, we decided to have a pre-Christmas party for more than just us.That year I made invitations and popped them in every letter box along the street.
Finally I got people from the top of the street and people from the bottom together. I think I should mention that many of us had children the same age, we had a swimming pool, and the weather was hot.
The party was a great success and we did it for five or six years. Finally, the neighbours began to get little restless and expressed the sentiment that it was too much for one family to do each year. We demurred, because it was our birthday celebration. However, they took a vote and began to deputise a new family each year to do The Street Party. At first we were a little gobsmacked but we tried to make the best of it.
Although we attended for few years, since it was no longer our birthday party, and we were invited to many other functions at that time of year, we no longer felt obligated, and attended others at will. Within a few more years, the street party idea died, which it would. People forgot whose turn it was and the kids grew older. It became a booze-fest for the same people who drank too much every year.
Then my husband died. In my street, other people had also died, the children had grown up and left in other's houses, and new people had moved in.
I needed to reconnect. I designed invitations and trudged up and down the hill and filled every letter box with an invitation to a party for everyone in the street. The second revision of my party got going and has been happening for the past ten years ...
...until last year when the neighbours decided that my party should be shared around again. Apparently it was too much for me. When I was told, I mentioned that I was happy to cater for and supply drinks for my own party. But no. A new family was delegated, and this year I didn't buy or prepare food, and I didn't worry about a drink supply and having enough glasses.
I did haunt my letter box, but I didn't get an invitation to my birthday party. I don't know if the delegates remembered or not. And so it goes. You invent something, others steal it, and then they forget it.
There must be a lesson in this, but I don't know what it is.
Mine is highest of the bottom end, built where another street intersects in a T shaped juncture in a street that meanders into the hills. It was explained to me that the people at the top didn't speak to the people at the bottom. Apparently, it was a social thing. I laughed and accepted being at the bottom of the rung.
The next part of the story is about Christmas because my husband's birthday was on Christmas day and mine is in early January. I never had a birthday party as a child. Never. Not once. Then, very soon after we married, we realised that we two, who never had birthday parties, even though we could now afford them and organise them ourselves, would be wasting our time if we tried. Everyone races out of town for the Christmas holidays.
So, I went to other peoples' parties and envied the fact that friends could celebrate their birthdays but I couldn't celebrate mine, other than with my dear ones.
So, combining the antipathy of the neighbours at each end of the street and the fact that the Christmas boy and I could never mention our birthdays, we decided to have a pre-Christmas party for more than just us.That year I made invitations and popped them in every letter box along the street.
Finally I got people from the top of the street and people from the bottom together. I think I should mention that many of us had children the same age, we had a swimming pool, and the weather was hot.
The party was a great success and we did it for five or six years. Finally, the neighbours began to get little restless and expressed the sentiment that it was too much for one family to do each year. We demurred, because it was our birthday celebration. However, they took a vote and began to deputise a new family each year to do The Street Party. At first we were a little gobsmacked but we tried to make the best of it.
Although we attended for few years, since it was no longer our birthday party, and we were invited to many other functions at that time of year, we no longer felt obligated, and attended others at will. Within a few more years, the street party idea died, which it would. People forgot whose turn it was and the kids grew older. It became a booze-fest for the same people who drank too much every year.
Then my husband died. In my street, other people had also died, the children had grown up and left in other's houses, and new people had moved in.
I needed to reconnect. I designed invitations and trudged up and down the hill and filled every letter box with an invitation to a party for everyone in the street. The second revision of my party got going and has been happening for the past ten years ...
...until last year when the neighbours decided that my party should be shared around again. Apparently it was too much for me. When I was told, I mentioned that I was happy to cater for and supply drinks for my own party. But no. A new family was delegated, and this year I didn't buy or prepare food, and I didn't worry about a drink supply and having enough glasses.
I did haunt my letter box, but I didn't get an invitation to my birthday party. I don't know if the delegates remembered or not. And so it goes. You invent something, others steal it, and then they forget it.
There must be a lesson in this, but I don't know what it is.
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