More on: neighbors

in every generation, each person must regard himself or herself as if he or she were the one liberated, on the very night of Passover, from Egypt                                         adapted from the Passover Haggadah This won’t do, the Seder your grandmother cooked and indexed on cards to leap down the generations; this won’t do, the Seder…

lets go of his cane and holds with both hands the pew ahead of him. Now and then he dips down, shaking, pulls himself back up. Stands still as he can while the gospel’s read. Today the Parable of the Sower. Pastor says he thinks it’s less about what kind of soil we are— rocky,…

WE’D HEARD RUMORS of the difficulties that had befallen our neighbors, the Samsas, but we’d certainly never expected to become embroiled in their misfortune. In the five years that they occupied the flat opposite ours on Charlotte Street, while their familial habits offered us no grounds for complaint, they had held themselves conspicuously aloof from…

Down the block, our new neighbors, not unlike the old, could be named the Grackles, given the way everything they have is loud: cars, children, stereos, parties. It all spills out into the street—broken bikes, pizza boxes, a nasty looking dog with nothing to restrain it but the owner’s curse. Giving the mutt wide berth,…