The kindness of neighbors

Did you know that its been snowing?  Well, if you where anywhere in the Mid-atlantic region in the past 5 days, you are keenly aware of this.  I've talked to more of my neighbors these past few days that in the 2.5 years I've lived in my current house.   There's nothing like a major weather event to bring a community together.  Firstly, there's about 1 snow shovel per 10 people, and Home Depot was not well stocked before the storm hit.  So we have to share.  With that, I've experienced a sense of community spirit and helpfulness that I never have before living in this area.  My parking spot is in the corner of the lot, so after the first 20 inch snowfall, the plow truck scooted all the snow directly in back of my car.  I knew this was a monumental task for me to do alone, but I just started in.  Quite amazingly, after an hour of shoveling, 2 neighbors came over to help when they were done with their spots.  Then 3 more came, so there were 6 of us removing this HUGE snowdrift from behind my car (also helping to free up the cars around mine).  It would have surely taken me alone 4 hours, but we did it in 2.  Then again today, after yesterday's snowfall, I went outside, inquiring about when a shovel would be free.  One guy asked which car was mine, which I pointed out to him.  I told him to knock on my door when the shovel was free, and he said "Ok, but maybe we'll just shovel it for you".  I surely thought he was kidding.  I went back out 2 hours later, and him and his friend had cleared out my car!  And I don't know which house they live in so I can't thank them personally, but I am so grateful for their kind actions. 

We live so cut off from each other, even though we literally live on top on one another in condos and apartments, squeezed in next to each other in narrow townhouses.  I'm thankful for anything that shakes up this false sense of separation and forces us to talk to one another and help each other out.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who actually is happy about all this snow and this experience of storm camaraderie; I can see it in other people's faces as well. Its naturally how we are meant to live--working together, helping each other out, socializing on a daily basis.  I hope that we can continue to work towards re-establishing a sense of community in our non-storm affected lives.