Maybe it's the Lenten reminders to reexamine our lives, or maybe it's New Year's resolutions being made very late, but I'm making an intentional effort to get more involved in our neighborhood. Last week I got my hair cut at Odanga, a new salon that just opened on Woodstock Ave. That means I can walk to get my hair cut and I can chat it up with women who live in the 'hood. I went to a new home community (house church) from Imago Dei that meets a few blocks from our house so I can meet other Christ-followers who live near me (even if they all look like they're 21). I started taking yoga classes at Woodstock Wellness, a new holistic health center that I can walk to. That should count as a double workout, right?
We moved to this neighborhood because it was the kind of neighborhood where we really could walk to meet our daily needs. It's still backwards and old-fashioned enough to be affordable---at least, affordable by Portland standards. But I realized that we've lived here 2 1/2 years and I have not maximized my use of the neighborhood assets, nor have I really taken time to get to know my neighbors.
It's been sort of hard to get to know neighbors here. There was no "welcome wagon" of people coming by to meet us when we moved in. We don't really seem to have anything in common with our two closest neighbors so there hasn't been a lot of motivation to get to know them better. Does anyone have good ideas for how to get to know your neighbors without it seeming forced or annoying? One of my ideas is to start attending neighborhood association meetings.
This is my resolution: to live creatively in my neighborhood.
P.S. Updated links on the left to a few of my favorite places in the virtual neighborhood.
