America used to be the kind of neighbour you could count on for a candle in a power cut, but there’s a new family in the big house, and they aren’t very nice.
After three rounds of coming and going on my own road as well as the knocking down of some of the old baches in Pūrākaunui to build new houses, I’ve observed a pattern to many of the arrivals:
With visions of The Good Life, a couple arrives from the city.
Having bought their own piece of coastal paradise complete with abundant bird life, the first thing the new owners do is raze every living green thing to the boundary, asserting their dominance over nature. Sometimes this is combined with extensive earthworks and the concreting of any area that might still grow something. A brutalist minimalism is accomplished, enhanced by a Treblinka grade spotlight, to prevent anyone stealing the concrete.
Up on Boundary St at my place, eyeing the gaps in the hedge of trees bordering our two properties, it’s about now that I screw my courage to the sticking place, face my hatred of talking to people and pop over to ask them to stop ruining my privacy. "I’m sure you don’t want to see me," I say in a jolly tone, meaning, "I do not want to see you".
This part usually goes very poorly because of two reasons:
1. By this point I have been worrying about it for weeks and become hyper focused, so I end up saying all kinds of wacky shit, and
2. I hate confrontation. One time I burst out crying.
Also on the "moving to the country" list, after Red Bands and a rake, is the acquisition of an old bathtub, never to be used for outdoor bathing purposes by anyone but blackbirds, destined to be an abandoned spider mansion until it has the opportunity to give someone a herniated disk.
Next is the acquisition of chickens, because you can’t move to the country without indulging in some animal husbandry - chickens and at least five roosters. These roosters will be dropped off at the rooster relinquishing point on Blueskin Rd in a few months’ time, when their constant crowing proves less romantic than lifestyle magazines make it out to be.
Construction begins on a chicken coop and run. After watching this with a mingled sense of despair and deja vu, I might go over and point out that they need my written or verbal permission for the hen village, and the chicken coop needs to be 1.5m from the boundary, and they are building it right next to my bedroom.
I know, I know, what a Karen.
Even though I am blonde and middle-aged I don’t want to be a Karen, although the other day I did shout at someone for letting their dog poo on the sand bar where people collect cockles at low tide, so maybe it’s too late - I just want peace, quiet and privacy.
I want to be able to walk down the path from the house to the hot tub in a towel without triggering a thousand-watt search light.
"From the house to the hot tub" ... Oh god, I am a Karen. And the "house" is a 50-square bach without an inside toilet - I need to get a grip on myself.
It might be better if we had the kind of neighbourhood relationships I observed as a child of the ’80s. Households on our street took turns hosting elevenses (literally a ’goon before noon) - everyone got wrecked, nobody knew where their children were, and all the women did Jazzercise to stave off the suburban boredom. But they knew each other’s names.
I have no idea what my new neighbours’ names are, or what they do, and that’s on me.
And while I probably never will, a little self-reflection is always a good thing.
