Duality

There's a 8-10 foot wide spot of yard and sidewalk between our house and our neighbor's. In an effort to separate their child, their dog, and the dog's crap, they have made a two-year-old haven in that area, some of which is actually our otherwise unused property.

There's a sand box, a slide, a rumbling plastic roller coaster, and some other toys, large and small. It's become the hang-out for the two-and-under gang of the neighborhood, every afternoon. Some of the kids are small enough that a parent holds their arms as they go down the 'coaster. Other's go down forward or backwards, without fear. Some are thinking it would be great to line the ramp up with the embankment, for an extra long and steep ride.

I am thinking to post the following sign in my front garden: "If your child plays in my yard, I will teach them cuss words".

Or maybe to start blasting punk music out my windows "Fuck fuck fuck" to a heavy drum beat. I am sure the kids will dance to it.

My neighbor knocked on the door yesterday, to see what was going on "oh, I was wondering if you were still alive over here, I haven't seen you for awhile" (why do people so colloquially refer to death?). Well, I have been busy, and out of the house a bit, with the summer camp and all. I also told her that I am outside, working in my front garden, just not when she - of the unusual work schedule - is around.

In my circuitous way, I did eventually use an opening - when she said how much fun her son has on the rollercoaster - to say that it is annoying. I can hear it in my house. No it's not that he rides it too early. It's the afternoon, when all the two-and-unders are here. She figured it out, she got it.

I feel bad that it bothers me. But I feel like all those parents are being insensitive. They all live here, on the same block that I do. If they didn't know directly, surely they have heard - that my baby died, that she should be out there, of an age with their children. Maybe she'd be old enough now to go down the rollercoaster by herself, or maybe she would still need the support of her parents.

The reason my neighbor doesn't see me is because when they are all out there, I am hiding in my house, trying to not hear the rumble of the rollercoaster, as its reverberations break chinks into my cobbled together heart.