Places and Spaces to Live

Where I currently live, the neighbors are polite and courteous but somewhat distant. I recall places where I lived where things were “more interesting”. There was one place where the next-door neighbor was gone most of the time, and his cat was kind of a latch string kitty at our place. It was so bad that I was the one who took it to the vets for medical attention. Luckily, kitty was OK, but the jerk had the nerve to complain to me about my taking the cat to the vets. Jerk.

The Folkie Palace

Then, while I lived at the Folkie Palace (1960s Boston’s Beacon Hill, Wow!) our downstairs neighbors were a bunch we just labeled ” the Anarchists”. They were extremely friendly people, as long as you avoided political discussions with them. They were Anarcho-Syndicalists. I was the delegate from our crazy group to interface with them, being that my family was from Catalonia, and I was a bit familiar with the political context of their philosophy. They were always trying to organize rent strikes in our slummy building, or cooperatives. Beyond being boring at a party, they were good neighbors.

The Lofts

When I lived in the big loft industrial building by the railroad tracks, I had a raft of interesting neighbors: Ray the coffin maker, and Walden the painter. You had to be careful visiting Walden. He wasn’t careful about cleaning up the splotches of paint on the floor. His painting method was rather splash and daub with palette knives. At the same location was an Electronic recycler, a butcher block maker, some batik makers, and others. It was, in a weird way, an awesome place to live. And the parties were incredible. My cat Clancy, AKA the Grey Menace, had a red cat buddy with whom he’d go hunting mice and rats in the recesses of the building. I’d open the door of my studio in the morning to a line up of their catches for the night—great place to live, for the cats.

So by comparison to prior experiences, where I am currently is placid, a bit boring, but much safer. Those old neighborhoods were not really safe areas to live in. But the thing that makes good neighbors is that they look out for each other.