My Year Among the Sunflowers (Month 1)
July’s theme: It’s a playground.
Me. Moving into an “active adult” community. And it’s called Sunflower. And it’s in Arizona. Me? Me. And my sunny disposition. Mostly the Community name reminds me of Peter Brady. The streets are paved with unicorns and rainbows, with names like Wishing Star and Wandering Spring, Twinkling Shadows and Morning Light. I’d say it’s like living in a Hallmark movie, but there’s no snow or sweaters or hot cocoa. There’s a Greensleeves Lane, too. I think I like this one the most, because it reminds me of the song (about a prostitute) I played at Miss Louise’s summer piano recital when I was 12.
I signed a year’s lease the first week of June and moved in on July 2nd. The house is just what I needed and ordered, maybe not the town or the neighborhood, but the house is just right for me. It’s 20 years old, but feels a lot newer. Someone really loved this house a lot.
The neighborhood is impeccably landscaped, of course, with a lot of HOA money. And constantly manicured by its inhabitants. This comes at the price of a whole lot of leaf blowers (there are no leaves) and street cleaners and checking on this and replacing that. Fiddle and piddle.
It was a month of bleeding money, but it was fun. My word for 2022 has been "Refresh”, and I feel it now. Shopping, replacing items stolen in the winter robbery, buying better things. I spent four years in the last house, where I wouldn’t have stayed after the first year had it not been for taking a break from my career and the lockdown real estate market. For various reasons, I had to keep my clothes in the detached garage, do laundry in said garage, and strategize the entire move around an interim “airing out” of my things in a storage unit. Sometimes, I think moving to another town would have killed me - just because of the extra logistics. All givens in a a first-world life, and I couldn’t have imagined that two years of hell, but I feel like a human being again. I’m better than that. Yes, I’m better than unidentified stench.
I had big thoughts of walking in the mornings here, what with so many bike paths and sidewalks, but I’m not sure it’s for me. I tried it once and encountered 52 people. 52! It’s going to take me some time to figure out the routine in this area, but from what I can tell so far, the women folk start their days around 5:30 or 6am walking little shitzoos and weenie dogs. They stop a lot to gather and talk in the streets. What does one neighbor have to talk to another neighbor about every day? Then they go home, and the next category gathers their toys for the morning clubhouse games. You see them carrying their swimming totes, their water toys, their pickleball or bocchi whatnots into the community center, like parentless children being dropped off at daycare.
Once this category has tuckered out, they go back home. Maybe there’s time for a morning nap, I don’t know, but not too long after, the women send their husbands outside. The men spin and spin for the rest of the day. I’ve never seen so many manic old men in my life. Poor things. What to do, what to do? Sometimes, they’ll break for what I might imagine to be nap time.
There are a few tricycles around me. Motorcycles with training wheels? The men dress up in gloves and helmets sort of like the Red Baron and tool to places nearby. Very handy at the Safeway. Lots of trips to the Safeway. I imagine the inside: The wife makes a list of ten things every day, but gives him one item at a time, so he’ll have things to do. And the husband just panting for each treat. This is critical to living in the same house without shooting each other, I’m sure.
There are countless clubs - bingo and billiards, pinochle and ping pong, quilting and chorale, all things pool and tennis, etc. And events! Craft fairs, dances, little concerts, guest speakers. Last month’s monthly newsletter with all the details was 27 pages long. I think everybody’s covered.
They also have a neighborhood watch of sorts. You sign up to check on your neighbors. If someone needs extra help - maybe they’re sick or recovering from something - they can call on a bank of Sunflower volunteers. This is very nice! A little nosy, but more so, nice!
I wonder what would be discovered if a person dug a loose layer deeper. Who’s sleeping with whom? Who’s mad at whom? Who didn’t invite whom to the dominoes game?
The houses are very close together, preventing yards of any kind. I haven’t heard one barking dog or one party yet, but it’s also summer. I’m already scared for the snowbird season to hit in October.
The only neighbor issue I have is a football-field-floodlight-level porch light (Halogen or LED who knows, but whichever is the brighter is his) that my neighbor behind me turns on at dusk and doesn’t turn off until typically after midnight or some time the next morning. It’s directly behind my bedroom, making it like sleeping in daylight. I have asked Wilbur (not his real name) if he might turn it off after 9pm, but so far, I’m not having luck. I’m crying myself to a half-sleep a lot.
My sunny disposition could be in peril in Month 2.