My Year Among the Sunflowers (Month 4)

October’s theme: Uncle.

My Silk and Sonder monthly workbook came in the mail the last week of September. October’s theme is “Surrender”. So, I guess I’m just supposed to surrender to Wilbur and accept the fact that I’m living in a cave - slash - trailer with film on the windows and tarps on the sliding glass door just so I can sleep in the bedroom and watch television in the living room? That I just have to live with the energy of an asshole-level old shit who refuses to turn off a patio Halogen or LED (whichever is brighter is his) floodlight before 1am even though he never uses said patio and has been asked and asked so sickening sweetly that the only answer from any human being would be this bare minimum request for common decency? That I’ll never get my security deposit back? That because of the Arizona sun, I’ll have to replace the film every other month, which is neither easy nor cheap?

So, surrendering’s going well…..

But I do practice my own little surrender prayer: God, I hand it all over to you. You’re in control anyway, so I lay it at the throne, as they say. There’s a serenity in surrender, I understand, but first, there are a few other states of being to work through (lol). So, part of this post is a writing tantrum about Wilbur. I hope it’s closure, so I can again look at all the humor to be had here this year as a Sunflower.

The community’s annual yard sale was last weekend. I had no idea, because I don’t regularly read the 27-page monthly newsletter full of all the goings on. But apparently, there is an annual yard (there are no yards, so it’s really garage) sale that requires schedules and maps. Everyone has between 7am and 10am to sell their goods. All I knew was that it was like living on the busiest street in the busiest city at the busiest time of day at 9am when I sat on the couch for my first Saturday football game of the day. Cars, vans, trucks, dollies, golf carts, you name it backed up waiting for their turn to get to the loot at the next stop. It wasn’t obvious what was going on, until I saw the trucks chock full of junk bound up with rope. You know, the famous Arizona Grapes of Wrath style of moving, traveling, toting, etc. But it was over quickly, because a 40% chance of rain was forecast for between noon and 12:05. They were all abuzz with searching, negotiating, and scoring stuff before the Armageddon. How people in their 70s and 80s can find such excitement and newness (I’m suddenly reminded of the Love Boat theme song) in other people’s things is beyond me.

So, Wilbur. I was instructed by the landlord to keep a log of what transpired after she talked to the HOA/Community Manager in September. So, October 3rd (I actually waited until Monday to be kind and not interrupt her weekend - why do I do this?), I emailed her the log. Wilbur had left his lights on ALL NIGHT long for 8 of the 11 days since her visit.

She responded 4 days later with an email that said:

I have emailed the Manager but haven’t heard back.

Sorry that you feel like you need to live in a cave. I hope that at least during the day there is no need to keep the blinds closed. You are welcome to put up any non-permanent partition or curtains or something like that to block the neighbors view.

At this point, I am not sure what else we can do.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

I wrote so many emails in response, but in the end, I sent nothing. I know it’s futile to explain the basics of anything in this world to someone who begins a sentence with, “I’m sorry you feel…” I’m exhausted by the lights, the principle, and the frustration of it. Not sure what else you can do? You mean, besides NOTHING?!?! The landlord is the only person who can speak to the HOA. All she has to do is contact the HOA with a follow-up to say nothing’s better. And she won’t even do that. I have grounds to break the lease, of course, and probably win a small claims suit for my moving expenses (and maybe my diminished mental health - ha), but who wins in the end? I’m too old and tired to deal with yet another person shitting all around me, so as much as I struggle with this, I have to go doormat.

Wilbur has a lighting pattern. When anyone has contacted him since I started trying for resolution in August, he doubles down. So, while the landlord said she hadn’t heard back, I believe he was contacted, because for the next 7 days, he left the lights on 24 X 7. And more lights. Two car-shop (I guess?) lights, the Edison lights around the patio and the floodlight.

Don Ho across the street put up a myriad of Big Lots Halloween decorations (like we trick or treat?) in his yard and on his mailbox and was made to take some of them down, mostly in, on, above, below, and attached to his mailbox, but I can’t get a floodlight off in the middle of the night? Such the life of a Sunflower renter, I guess. Screw all y’all, because as usual, I’m right, and you’re all wrong.

I’ve tried it all. This was my last demographic. Yes, it’s partially me and my disgust at the lack of common decency, but it’s mostly my curse. I’ve tried city folk, country folk, old folk, young folk, university folk, suburb folk, just any folk, and the one who behaves the worst? That’s who finds me. Is there a place remote enough for me in the US? Why should this woman in the Town of One in Nebraska have all the luck?

Someone told me that the secret to breaking my neighbor curse might be to think of what I am able to tolerate, rather than what I want, in my surroundings. That old “focus on what you want, not what you don’t want” positive spin on things has never worked, so I’ve been reframing to what I can tolerate. It won’t be Wilbur much longer.

I see surrender as quitting, giving up, waving the white flag, and ultimately letting the bad “them” take advantage of me. But it’s rarely personal for them. “Sometimes, it’s not the times you decide to fight, but the times you decide to surrender that make all the difference.”

This Sunflower’s sunny disposition died last month in the September heat, but surrenders to a sunnier November, when I will try my best to make sure the humor here wins.