Halida and her family are from Bosnia and we have a good time chatting about our little hobby. "What you call?" she asked me one day, pointing at carnations. "Karanfil," she told me.
We've developed quite a little friendship over the years I've lived here, and it's all because of our love for the garden.
Last year I realized that nobody in my apartment complex talks to one another. "What is this about," I asked myself. We live in such close proximity, yet people don't even say hello when they crisscross in the parking lot on the way to the dumpsters or the mailboxes. I'd chalked it up to cultural differences when an Asian man from an apartment across the way flat out ignored my smile and friendly "hello!"
Determined to hasten change, I talked to the apartment manager, rented out the "community room," knocked on doors, left invitations, and posted flyers for a potluck. I heard children scuffling on the other side of the door, but nobody answering... "What are they afraid of?" Only a couple families came, and imagine the odds, two of us brought lasagne! But it was still a success because it did increase the community bonds for the people that did come.
After that event was when I realized, Halida and I have a relationship with one another because we're outside tending to our gardens! The others rarely go out except to hop in their cars and zip away, zip home, and shut the door on their private lives.
My relationship with Halida has been beneficial in other ways, too. When I go on vacation, she's the one that will keep my garden alive and feed my cat. What would I do without my community? Do my non-gardener neighbors even realize what they're missing?
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