MARLBORO — I was hesitant to move to Vermont for only one reason (well, maybe two reasons, if you count the long winter).
I grew up in Mount Pleasant, an urban neighborhood in Washington, D.C., in the 1970s and 1980s. During my youth, this area of the city was equal parts white, black, and Latino. The row houses on the surrounding blocks were peppered with neighbors of different backgrounds and classes, packed closely.
When I attended private school with kids from primarily white neighborhoods, I quickly realized that I had received a gift of perspective. There is less of a feeling of “other” when you see families with different beliefs, dress, and skin color every day.
Not to paint a picture of utopian bliss, as there was plenty of drama, but we saw one another as different and respected. It is harder to objectify people or families when you spend time in their homes, see their children grow up, or watch them go to work every morning.
I am married to a white Vermonter and have two kids who have grown up here. It is very difficult to impart comfort and a sense of unity with diverse people in anyone who has not had close experiences with a diverse group of people in their lives.
My daughter's friend said it perfectly when the Supreme Court ruling came down in favor of marriage equality: “I wish I knew someone who was gay so I could ask them how it feels.”
* * *
One of my favorite neighbors lived in the house adjacent to mine.
Nellie Lawton, daughter of the late Henry and Marie Chandler, was born on in 1907 in Tennel, Georgia. The youngest of six children, she was educated in the public school system there. She once described her job picking cotton when she was young.
She met and married the late Ardent Lawton in 1944 in Washington County, Georgia. After her husband's death, she and her sister Sally moved to D.C. in the 1950s to work as “domestics” - household maids.
They were African-American.
I was born in 1972, so my memories of Nellie are from when she was older, mainly after she stopped working and after her sister had died.
Through the prickly leaves and bright red berries of the large holly tree between our houses, I would frequently look over from my porch to hers and watch her sitting on a metal porch rocker.
Living in a row house in D.C. provided an unavoidable intimacy with your neighbors. All of us looked down into our neighbors' parallel rectangles of backyard with varying degrees of fascination, disdain, affection, and concern. Our house shared walls with a house on either side, and sound moved through them easily - God knows what our neighbors heard of the shouts and anger of our household.
Nellie always had the constant companionship of a German Shepard. Over the years, she had many of these Ceres-type dogs, which were ferociously protective and always straining at their chains. But somehow they abided the shouts of this small woman.
Only years later, I realized that Nellie always wore a wig when I would see her. As she got on in years, she would come out of the house more often with just a stocking over her shorn and sparse hair.
As a young child, our ball would frequently fly over the fence into Nellie's yard. I would feel a moment of dread, followed by bravery. I would knock on Nellie's front door to let her know our ball was in her yard.
She would open the door only as far as the chain would stretch, her dog straining to get at me, the intruder. Sometimes she would say “All right, one moment” and go to the yard herself, throwing the ball back over. Or she would keep the dog inside while one of us climbed the fence to retrieve the ball.
On one occasion, Nellie invited me to walk through the house to the yard. It was the first time I had entered her house.
Here was the amazing thing to me as a child: these row houses started with the exact same layout, built like a development in the early 20th century. And yet, each house's interior had the distinct feel of its owner.
Nellie's house was darker, blinds pulled shut. It was hard to make my way from the front door to the back, with sun-drenched eyes.
On every surface, there was stuff: blankets, dirty plates, piles of asthma inhalers. And the backyard was mostly dirt, with a few boxwood bushes and a scattered minefield of dog feces.
And right next door, in my family's row house, there was a lush garden of cut grass and roses. Our house was an eternally neat, worldly museum of crafts on the wall and Turkish rugs. We had a house cleaner. My parents were forever making improvements to the inside and outside of the house.
There was great beauty but also an intense tightness and control.
Nellie and I would talk to each other from our front and back porches, from which I would realize, years later, that she kept a watchful eye on the neighborhood happenings.
There were thick iron bars across her windows. As a teenager, I would always peer through those bars from our porch to see if I could catch Nellie's eyes, those sparkling, knowing eyes. Today, I wish I knew more of her life and how she maintained such an indomitable spirit through her 99 years.
Nellie was the first person I met in my life who assured me that we all have an untouchable soul - one that is not of this material world, its hardships, and its lack. She would sing her heart out on her bare-wood back porch, clapping her rough, chapped hands, singing about Jesus, as if this was but a stopping point on her journey.
“Pay it no mind, young girl,” she would say.
* * *
Mixed-race neighborhoods like my childhood neighborhood are harder to find within the Beltway. Today, this neighborhood in D.C. is gentrified, filled with young white professionals who have gutted houses like ours and like Nellie's and who have created very expensive properties on the backs of the longtime residents of color.
And Vermont and the Brattleboro area are dealing with the growing pains of a primarily white community becoming increasingly diverse. Such shifts are challenging for any community but particularly a rural community that lacks casual contact outside of social circles to begin with.
My kids regularly closely experience age, class, and sexual diversity. And they are becoming more keenly aware of racial diversity through
public high school and the public library where I worked for eight years.
These places in our community are open to all of us, regardless of money or social orientation. They present a clearer cross-section of our population.
My hope for my kids' future and the future of Vermont is that we not just invite difference but create a welcome atmosphere for a truly open, diverse towns and neighborhoods.
Because in the end, as Ram Dass said, “We're all just walking each other home.”