The Street

Of course I realize that everything seen on the exterior is not necessarily what is truly going on...that we never really know what someone is thinking or experiencing... the "secrets" carefully hidden (or not so carefully when, upon pulling into someone's driveway, you hear their neighbour shrieking war-cry expletives at their spouse, which in turn causes me to wonder what others may have heard when we have left windows ajar?).

But watching BBC's "The Street" ["an outstanding drama series about life behind the front doors of everyday working-class families on a street in Manchester, northern England" as the borrowed-from-the-library DVD cover proudly states] certainly fosters in my cranium what really is happening behind the doors on our street.

[Warning: Spoiler Alert]
 Hopefully we are a rather boring row of homes in which there are no murderous rampages (then covered-up) or married neighbours "shagging" one another before accidentally hurling their car into the other's child or twins who, upon one's death the other exchanges his identity and completely destroys his own family whom he thought despised him....


  It's not so much that I am nosey about what is happening in the inner sanctums along our road, but rather curious about what truths go unacknowledged, what help is needed and neglected, what measly words we might gently exclaim to share our concern?

It was when I publicly admitted to postpartum depression that others privately opened up and shared their own experiences - the loneliness that creeps in when your own head plays such horrid games with you....it was when I told others about our miscarriage that so many who had experienced the same thing released their emotions and allowed a freedom and vulnerability between us.  An understanding...and a new-found belief that the way I had been feeling did not make me crazy or an oddity.  Others had and were undergoing that same emotional roller coaster.  And on the practical side so many blessed us with meals, groceries, offers of childcare, prayers...

What really is going on behind closed doors? 

Who was it that said "no man is an island"?  [Quick internet search reveals it was supposedly John Donne.]

So what can we do?  Today's Challenge: get to know neighbours???