Ok, there is no such word as "irk". That is there is no noun "irk". You can be "irked". Or someone you know can be "irksome". I don't care. I want to tell you about my being "irked" and it is a tale of being so, so I have created a noun.
I live in most assuredly urban surroundings in Los Angeles. To me, though, coming from where I do, as you know I do, where I live manages to have a suburban element that no similar neighborhood in New York could achieve. In the middle of several thoroughfares, at night, and even in the day, it is fairly quiet. There are hummingbirds, and doves, and sparrows. You hear crows here like you might in some idyllic country setting early in a morning.
So, for me that little gazebo my neighbors of old built in the mostly parking space back yard, to which I added jasmine and bouganvilla, and the little strip of grass that only recently began to grow in the hard dusty ground on which dogs and cats used to pee and poop, has become something of a cause celebre for me. I want it protected.
Let me back up. I like my neighbors very much. I even went to the wedding of one who still lives in our building and one who is now residing in a small house not far from here. I won't say that I am perfect, or that I never leave a mess anywhere, but I do try not to disturb my neighbors with my stuff. To the extent that I ever have, and recently by the way, you should see how quick they are to remonstrate with me. So, for example, last week I finally had the time to do a garage sale and I had moved some stuff into the gazebo for placement the next morning in the front. Pretty quickly I was asked if it were staying there, as in laws were visiting the next day and they were hoping it would be clean. It would be. It was.
One of my cats, Bleu, likes to run into the common hallway and sit upstairs. He has never disturbed anything. One night I did not realize he was out there, as usually I do, and he was out there, all night. You guessed it. He pooped. He had no choice. He could not knock at the door. I found him out there the next morning. I did not realize there was poop or I would have cleaned it up immediately. Instead of coming to me about it, another neighbor, again someone I like, complained to the landlord.
Meanwhile, I have one neighbor whose several projects over the years have rendered the back yard a frequent junk shop complete with greasy pavement (he does use product to clean it off), and throws his dirty clothes in a bucket in some major cleaning chemicals on our porch. I have two others who smoke and then throw the remains of the cigarette over their upstairs bannisters where I run into them. Back in the day of my former neighbor, essentially a florist shop was run out of our back yard. She was getting started, and is doing deservedly well, but geez. Oh, and the big one that has happened for all the years I have lived here?: Whenever one of my neighbors has a visitor, they don't park on the street, but squish into our back yard. I have never done this. Never. If anything, I'd give up my space so that my visitor can park there. I have never complained, and certainly never to our landlord. I used to figure that I would buy some good will for one of my quirks, like for example, the accident of Bleu being outside in the hallway all night. Or my shoes outside the door. Oh, and on those occasions when someone picks me up for some social gathering, maybe they'd be a little more patient before honking. After all, their friends have been known to park there and leave the car.
So much for that. Not enough good will, it appears. So, back to the strip of grass. I have more time, as I am in and out on various projects during the day, to water and to coax that intransigent patch to a true green. I fertilized. I plucked. And I figured that seeing this my neighbors would not need to be told that parking a car on it was well, discourteous. No. So I got some pliable fencing at the 99c store and fenced in the little space. I even wrote a note explaining without rancor that I was trying to nurture the space of our little backyard retreat, and there was fencing to do that, and I want you to know.
The other day I came out and found that the fencing had mostly been removed. The next night someone was on the grass again, someone who did not live here. That really went well. I tried to be nice. Explain. Request.
And dismissed out of hand.
Well, those little fencing things will now retire to my garage as I surely cannot enforce it. I could be a snitch and go to my landlord, but really, do I want to escalate over grass? And really it is about not being valued by the world at large. I haven't had great luck with that lately, being fired and all (with other good people) after 25 years of service, reaching management, doing well there, at least according to all those evaluations, so that the organization could go in a "different direction" which still has not come to fruition as far as I have heard from the survivors. So, in this very very small thing, I asked for something, and I was ignored.
Well I am still watering the grass, expecting it to be decimiated, but I am trying to look at and tame this need to be seen and heard and respected. Or wanting the rest of the world to conform to my memory of long dead days of civility.
I have to repent of my need to be, what did the Lord say, to be first at the table, and accept a smallness from which I do believe we not only achieve humility that draws us closer to God, but also brings peace.
Bet you did not see that coming? It is my repentence I seek, not theirs.
I have to stop being irked. These things are passing. There is much more, above the things of earth, with which to contend while I have the chance. Good luck to me. I am very fond of my irk.
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