When Neighboring Leaves You Speechless

Everybody! Neighboring is the bees knees! I know, we say this all the time, but seriously, it really is!

Let me tell a little story.

I live with Catherine and Matt Johnson, two of the co-founders of the Neighboring Movement. This past week, we were texting one of our neighbors whom we hadn’t seen in a while due to the pandemic, and we were talking about organizing some sort of distanced hangout in one of our yards. Well, the next thing we knew, our neighbor invited us over for dinner in her yard. We had no idea what we were in for…

Fast forward to Wednesday night. We arrive at our neighbor’s house with our lawn chairs, and she has prepared, I kid you not, A FEAST! And not only that, a feast of all of her favorite dishes! She set up a table just filled with countless delicacies: sourdough bread with a dipping sauce, chips with two homemade salsas, fish tacos with pico de gallo, avocado, and lime, creamy cucumbers, the list goes on and on and on! You name it, she had it. And oh my goodness gracious me oh my, it was all so delicious! Here’s Matt and I with our food…

As we began to chat and eat, it was immediately clear to all of us that there was no timeline on the evening. There was nowhere to rush off to, nowhere to be. Our neighbor had set aside the evening to be with us. We sat there together for almost three hours, and they were three hours of purest joy! We talked about everything from our experiences growing up to our dreams from the night before, and we laughed so much. It was so crazy, and it was so beautiful! We learned so much more about our neighbor, and she learned so much more about us. And by the end of the night, we decided to make sharing a meal together a weekly tradition! Like, WHAT?! You can’t make this stuff up! This actually happened!

Now, we didn’t just meet this neighbor; she moved into the neighborhood a couple years ago, and we have been fostering friendships since then. But this story is a testament to the power of neighboring! Our neighbors can become our dear friends in no time at all, and it is the most beautiful thing!

When Catherine, Matt, and I arrived back at our house, we plopped down on chairs and just kinda looked at one another. We were grinning from ear to ear, but we had nothing to say. We were speechless.