Awkward in the Neighborhood

I was volunteering recently in the local park, pulling ivy from long-neglected paths, when I ran into a woman from one street down. My neighbor gazed at Little A, who was waving her arms and bah-bah-bah-ing in the stroller while Big A spun circles around us.

"She's almost eight months old," I said, even though the woman had not asked the question I was answering. I tried to look her in the eye, but she stared at her feet and then left a few minutes later.

I don't need to be told how old her children are. Her daughter is just a few months older than Big A. Her son is just a few months older than my baby with trisomy 18 would have been, if the baby had been born on time. This neighbor and I were pregnant at the same time in 2005. We'd casually exchanged pregnancy info that fall at a block party, both of us innocent and hopeful about what lay in store for us at that moment in time.

The next time I met her was Halloween, 2006. She stood at my door, costumed baby and older daughter happily clamoring for candy. I was home alone, too ill to go out trick or treating with DH and Big A. Little A's pregnancy was kicking my ass. It was the beginning of the third trimester and I was round as a pumpkin -- exhausted, haggard, obviously pregnant.

I had not seen this neighbor in awhile. Yet I assumed she'd heard about my dead baby. It was ten months since the loss and I was no longer guarded when I ran into people on the street. Nobody offered condolences or stared at me anymore.

"Where is your little one?" The neighbor asked lightly.

I froze. God, she didn't know about the dead baby. The only words that sprang to mind were completely inappropriate to say in front of her kids. Like, can't you COUNT? If I'm very pregnant this Oct. AND was pregnant last Oct., how could that be, unless I'd lost the first baby? Are you an IDIOT?

"Oh ... Big A is out with her father trick or treating," I finally stammered.

"Yes, we just saw them. But where is the BABY?" she asked again, clearly not catching my drift.

What the fuck? Do I just look fat? Or does she think this is some kind of a costume -- tired suburban pregnant lady is now a character you dress up as?! Exasperated, I pointed at my belly. "I'm not due until January," I said firmly.

It was too dark to see if she blushed, but she finally got it. She thanked me quickly for the candy and hurried away. I leaned against the door, bowl of M&Ms propped up on my belly, feeling a whole new level of bad that night. In fact, I think that I switched off the porch light and stopped giving out candy after that.

I wonder if she'll ever actually be able to look me in the eye again?

Oh Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Last week our favorite neighbors moved away. They are the kind of family that included parents both DH and I liked as people, and a child that Big A adored. As any play-date veteran knows, that combination of parent/child compatibility is somewhat rare, and the fact that it existed just across the street from us was especially precious. We play dated regularly and watched each other's homes during vacations. Most memorably, these were the people who took in Big A the day my uterus ruptured and DH had to rush me to the hospital. I'm sure that watching my toddler (who was sick, to boot) on the last Saturday before Christmas with no warning was a colossal inconvenience. But they never complained, and in fact expressed gratitude that they happened to be home when my pregnancy shit hit the fan. Now, that's a good neighbor.

Our beloved ex-neighbors are attempting what I call "the golden exit." This is a scenario that anyone living in the San Francisco Bay Area knows: Sell your ramshackle property and move someplace far, far away, where your 25 percent stake in a house here translates into a 80-100 percent stake in the purchase of a bigger, nicer, newer home. When you live where the median home price is over a half million dollars, most young families who are lucky enough to be able to buy a house are doing so by taking on mongo mortgages. House payments then become the #1 determinant in our life decisions. They drag many a woman back from maternity leave before she is ready, or cause families to go into massive credit-card debt if they decide to try the single-income, parent-at-home route for awhile. It's inevitable that mortgages become the symbol of all that is hectic, frantic, and stressful in Bay Area life. It's no wonder that lower-cost housing is the siren song of the Red States.

Still, even though every family out here at least considers the golden exit in passing. most don't do it. People have problems staying here, but there are also obstacles to leaving. First, Bay Area residents are unable to tolerate any weather. Sure, we knit jaunty little scarves in winter, but we often wear them outside without jackets, because the Bay Area doesn't do ice or snow. And after the rainy season is over, you can count on it being dry for months and months. As someone who grew up in cloudy Upstate New York, this was a revelation to me when I first arrived. But, as with anything, revelation quickly turns to expectation. Everyone here cultivates ridiculously picky expectations about how the weather should treat them. When you utter, "Whoah, it's a little muggy!" when it is 30 percent humidity and 72 degrees, you are screwed. Moving to Saint Louis or Chicago is just out of the question.

The other big problem is that people are drawn to the Bay Area because of the wide variety of jobs, the ethnic diversity, and tolerant/liberal social values. If those things float your boat, it's hard to find a better boat than this. Sure, you can head to Seattle, Portland, Boston, or New York. Those are great places. But, those urban centers also have more expensive housing that would make the no-mortgage goal impossible for most. So in the end, most of us stay put and dream on about possibly leaving later.

So I'm bidding my ex-neighbors a fond farewell and wishing them luck in their relocation to Texas.* May they find the benefits of moving outweighing the losses. I'm also praying that the new neighbors who take their place will be even a fraction as great as these ones were.



*Texas, as in the state of mind rather than the geographical state. I refer to anything more than 30 miles away from the California coast as Social Texas, because once you go inland, the majority of people tend to be much more conservative than on the coast. Yeah, I know that would make me a wine-drinking, organic-food loving, latte-craving yuppie according to certain folks out there. To which I say ... yeah. For better or worse, that's probably me in more ways than not. Whatever. That's why I don't live in Social Texas (anymore), k?