Our Neighbors Had a Party & Hanging Out in the Army Hospital

Living Happy Extra

Last night, the kids across the street from us had a party.

We do not know these kids. They’re College of the Atlantic students and this off-campus housing tends to see them come and go with each season.

We opened the door and they’d left a note on the porch, flat against the wooden boards, telling us in perfect handwriting that they were having a party, telling us to call them if it got too loud.

And I wanted to shout across the street, “The sounds of your happiness is not going to make us call the police.”

I didn’t.

Shaun wanted to shout, “You should invite us!” He’s an extrovert like that.

Last night, as the party got going, louder and louder, when were flopped in bed, we could hear snippets of their happiness, moments of their laughter and conversations that we couldn’t hold onto.

All of life is like that, right? Seasons move. Seasons pass. People flow in and out of our lives.

Shaun and I wandered around Bar Harbor last night before our neighbors’ party and sat at the end of a little bar for a minute. A man sat alone near us, headphones in, but sometimes he’d look up and I knew he was listening to the people next to him—random, goofy people from away who downed shots like they were at their first college party.

They’d say something silly and he’d look up. I’d look over. We would both laugh.

I’m shifting into the present tense here though it’s the past and I know that’s weird. I just want you to know I know. :)

A couple years ago, I’m waiting in an army hospital in Georgia somewhere for my soldier-daughter the puppy-ballerina-princess-girl who could never decide on just one thing to be for Halloween.

She’s having surgery on her eye. It’s not super major, allegedly, but it’s a big enough deal that I had to take planes down from Maine to be here for her.

I’m waiting for hours, which is fine because people wait in this hospital for hours for much worse things. I see them walk by. Most of them wear dark clothes. Most of them wear sadness over their skin like make-up. No. It’s more like moisturizer. It’s sunk in.

These men and women wear uniforms and camouflage that sticks out in beige, fluorescent lit halls. One soldier walks by, jaunty, singing. I want to follow him around, spread his light.

I’m at a table in a room where two hallways meet. A man walks by with his arm in a black sling. A civilian worker in a green shirt jingles as he walks behind him. The table I sit at is small, square wood on a metal pole. Casters are on the bottom. It’s unbalanced and tilts if I lean too hard on it.

It feels like the objective correlative for my life. Not super balanced, you can probably push me around a bit. I’m ready to go places, but I might not be the best place to rest things on.

When I grew up half of my family said the point of family is to lean on each other. The other half of my family insisted that the leaning? It makes you weak. They are almost all dead now so I lean mostly on air, on walls, on tables.

It’s hard not to worry when you can’t control anything like surgeries or politicians or people with guns and hate-hearts. When there are wars in communities or countries or just households. It’s hard to move beyond that worry and live sometimes. It’s hard to feel like you’re not always waiting for something to happen instead of actively making things happen. Good things. I want to make good things.

Making anything is scary and vulnerable and real. I think I want most to be real, to matter somehow. I don’t think I’m alone in this and that gives me hope.

I am waiting in an army hospital and they call a code red, which probably means something horrible, but I’m clueless, just a clueless civilian.

Lately, I’ve been feeling like we’re all clueless about this world, this universe, even ourselves. How do we work? How does anything work? Relationships. Data. The internet? Lights. The stove. It’s all connections and collections and movement. Energy collected and coerced into doing will. Maybe.

People walk by me, mostly soldiers, some families. I only catch pieces of conversations and never the full thing.

“ ‘Hey Joe. Hey Joe. What’s up?’ He doesn’t even say, ‘What’s up.’ ”

“He talks to us.”

“He talks to me like I was cavalry.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he talks to me like God.”

The other guy laughs and they are lost down the hall. I will never know what’s up with Joe who when he talks, ends up talking to the laughing soldiers like they are God.

I am waiting in the army hospital and I will have no nice conclusions, no Marvel-style resolution to these stories. But mostly what I hear is people thanking each other, wishing each other a good day. I hear, “God bless.” I hear children whining, bored out of their minds. I hear a woman yell, “I got you.”

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I got you.

I am waiting in an Army hospital.

The hospital is everywhere.

The past goes away. Sometimes it shows us the foundations of what was once there. Sometimes trees grow out of those foundations and spread light and clean air, nurturing us.

How cool is that, really? How cool is it to be able to lean sometimes and grow others, to hear snippets of other people’s lives and wonder.

All these random photos were taken by me at one beautiful place in Maine that I got to go because someone was generous to a friend who was then generous to me. How amazing is that?

Community is that leaning. Community is those snippets. Community is when we celebrate other people’s joy and success and laughter. Community is about growing together and blossoming—for everyone.

That’s what I think to day anyway. How about you?

It’s about leaping across the cracks and the divides, holding out hands to help each other pass over, dancing in the streets after warning your neighbors. It’s kindness. It’s wondering about Joe and rickety tables in army hospitals. It’s about us. And it’s about time we all go for it, I think. Just be brave and listen and reach.

All these photos are by me, which is why they aren’t credited.

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