The Where I Live series aims to showcase our diverse city and region by spotlighting its many vibrant neighborhoods. Each week a local resident invites us over and lets us in on what makes their neighborhood special. Have we been to your neighborhood yet? Get in touch to share your story. If your story is selected and published, you will receive a $250 stipend.
Before moving into my husband’s home in the Shearer Hills neighborhood in 2022, I lived in apartments where it felt impossible to meet every neighbor. We passed each other in the night or blistering heat in silence, or in a cascade of door slams under fluorescent lights in various parking awnings.
Now, Pablo and I take walks every evening and pick up trash in our neighborhood. Walking to see the sunsets is one of his daily highlights. He loves to sit in the fading sunbeams on the sidewalk edge across the street from our house. The pavement warms his palms.
We often run into neighbors on our daily neighborhood walks and trash pick-ups. The combined trash collection and how trash collection brings us out into our neighborhood creates a deep sense of community in me and between us all.
As we head out on one of our trash-collecting night walks, Nacho runs to greet us, tail wagging, muzzle in a smile. Eric and Debbie walk out to greet us and call Nacho back to their front yard. Eric and Debbie are deeply involved in our neighborhood association and bring up a discussion about how San Pedro, our neighboring busy street, could become more pedestrian-friendly, with more sidewalk space or pedestrian crossings over the next 5 years.
Santos and his wife swing by during the holidays with cookies, and we hire Santos to help us with our AC unit, such as checking the coolant level in preparation for summer. Dylan and Wanda, who we sold my old Toyota 4Runner to, recently chopped down a dying Arizona ash tree. We love to discuss what makes trees grow.
Scott is out in the front fixing the brakes on his buddy’s car. Scott often invites us to eat with him at Oblate Cafe, where my go-to order is the bean, egg and cheese taco. We love chatting and getting together with our neighbors, even if it’s during our quick rendezvous in the street on our walks as we pick up trash.
Nightly, we take two pairs of gloves and a trash bag on our walks. We notice a plastic bag caught in the grate at the end of our street and make sure to stop by where our neighborhood intersects with McCullough Avenue, as there is more traffic on that street, which undoubtedly means more trash.
We went on walks more frequently with our 6-year-old nephew when he visited for a week in the summer. We taught him — and his loving personality knew — that a way to show love to your community is to keep it clean by picking up trash. On one particularly warm summer night, as we tossed our gloves in and called it for the trash pickup, we noticed one of our neighbors face down in the street.
We knew we needed to act quickly. My husband ran to help, and a neighbor driving by stopped to help. With the assistance, we got the man to his feet. My nephew had many questions, such as how the man fell and what we would do if we couldn’t help him to his feet. After we gently helped our neighbor to his home, we walked with more awareness and a deep sense of belonging, witnessing and living out our relationships with our community.
