Mystery Boxes: When Neighbours Open Doors

Written by Sarah Emtage

Every place you go there are pockets of mystery you probably don’t even think about. The house I grew up in has an attic and crawl-spaces I’ve never seen. Every familiar restaurant, campus, and subway station has hidden rooms I’ve never set foot in. The houses on my street contain unknown worlds I can’t even imagine. 

The doors to these houses conceal the lives of the strangers who are my neighbours. These thresholds feel like uncrossable boundaries, but one Saturday I found myself striding up the sidewalk somewhat terrified by my own intention to knock at one. 

I don’t remember when I started getting acquainted with Erlinda. I have been walking past her house on my way to work for about seven years, and she often gardens. I probably saw her many times before speaking to her. Eventually we got in the habit of saying hi and sometimes chatting. 

I got her permission to eat the raspberries from her front yard so that I would not be stealing them anymore. I learned she was from the Philippines, had gotten her nursing degree later in life, and worked as a nurse for a couple decades before retiring. One time I told Erlinda I was making salad for a potluck, and she gave me some fresh dill for it. Other times she gave me apples and pears from her trees.

For a long time I felt like I should give her something in return, but could not decide what. Then there came an August afternoon where I found Erlinda trying to trim tree branches out of her reach. I told her I wanted to help, but I had to get to the bank before it closed. She laughed and sent me on my way. It rained the next couple  of days, but the idea stuck in my head. 

Saturday dawned bright, and my offer to help felt like an unkept promise. I decided to offer again, and suddenly realized this was probably going to require knocking on her door. I was surprised by how alarming the idea felt. Visiting neighbours should be the most natural thing, but I felt like I’d be trespassing.

I pushed this feeling back and set off on my quest to knock at the pale blue mystery box of Erlinda’s home. The screen door stuck in the top corner, but I pulled it open. Erlinda welcomed me in with delight, but resolutely declined my offer to help with the tree. She had decided to leave the branches as they were. 

She invited me in for tea instead and introduced me to her husband Mike. I found their home artful, analog, warm, worn, and lived-in. Erlinda and Mike told me the story of how they met in Nigeria when they were both working there, all the places they had travelled to, and how Erlinda was hesitant to move to the frozen wasteland she expected Canada to be. 

When we exchanged numbers, I entered theirs in my phone while they put mine in a physical book. When we talked about places they had visited in Spain, I opened a maps app while Mike unshelved an atlas. This made me reflect on how ingrained technology is in my life. Sometimes I think it’s like the One Ring. I carry a powerful thing in my pocket and panic when I lose it. It promises to give me control over my world, but it often uses my impulses to control me instead. 

Many (if not most) of my relationships are formed and maintained online. The distance between me and other people online helps me to feel safe from interfering or being interfered with. If I annoy anyone, they can just filter me out and vice versa. 

It’s harder to ignore someone physically knocking at your door. Wendell Berry describes a community as “a group of people who belong to one another and to their place.” My digital community does not belong to a shared place. 

Place-based community can prevent us from living in echo chambers. In The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, the demon Screwtape dislikes the Parish Church—since a parish is based on place rather than personal preference, it brings different kinds of people into the unity God desires. Erlinda and I are from different generations and cultural backgrounds. We do not have much in common besides the street we live on, but that ends up being enough. In a life where most of my waking hours are spent looking at screens, my friendship with Erlinda helps root me to the physical reality in which I live. 

Modern society creates an illusion of self sufficiency. There is an increasing distance between us and those who work to make our food, clothing, and shelter. For example, I often do not even interact with the people who deliver my packages. But accepting gifts from Erlinda’s garden is a reminder that I am not self-sufficient. I can do good for her in return, but I cannot pay for her generosity in a transactional sense. I have to accept grace. 

Sometimes grace is a green apple from the back of Erlinda’s still-running car, and Mike’s patience while she retrieves it for me. Friendship and the gospel both invite me to let go of my pretence of self sufficiency and receive an unearned gift.

It’s not only the physical spaces around me that contain mysteries. Every person I encounter contains untold depths. Erlinda herself is still mostly a mystery to me.

The idea of knowing and being known by those around me continues to feel overwhelming to me at times, but slow and steady steps in that direction are gradually taking me out of myself. 

God is a patient guide. I will never reach the end of the mystery of grace or the mystery of my neighbours, but I am learning to remain openhearted to both.

Sarah Emtage is a poet, playwright, sculptor, and library technician in Kingston, Ont. She is currently keeping a spider plant alive. You can find her work at scribblore.com.