Sherman 'n Deering

I make jokes about living where I do. Portland, Maine is a quaint city by most standards and has many small-town attributes in its favor. When I moved to this neighborhood that was all I could see. In the following months it showed me a different face.

Drug dealers would hang out on stoops under fluorescent lighting, cars would slow at night as they passed me walking- thinking I might be on the clock, I even started noticing that the street wasn't being cleaned on "street-cleaning" days. I let all of this fall into the background, choosing my choice apartment at an affordable rate to occupy my thoughts in its stead.

Then one night I awoke to the sound of a car horn. Not just a "beepbeep" from an impatient taxi, but one very long beep. Too long. To those of you who know me, know that I am talking about the time my little Honda was burnt to a crisp by some punk kid.

It was an upsetting experience to say the least. I considered moving. My neighbors considered moving. The people that lived in the house next door didn't get to make that choice, they moved. Yet here I am today, still living in the same apartment. I might even love my apartment even more now, after all that we have been through...

Really though, watching the neighborhood come together on that night opened my eyes to the reality of living in a so-called "bad neighborhood." We stick together. Cheesy, I know, but true just the same. My favorite time is just after a snow storm. Everyone comes out bundled up and with shovels to start on their own car, but before we go inside we've uncovered at least one additional car and usually pushed a few others out of spinning situations. The neighborhood unites behind a common cause, turning snow storms into a community activity.

But my most favorite thing of all is my neighbor across the way. I don't know his name, but I do know that he has bad allergies in the summer. I hear him blowing his nose all the time. Once, he helped me figure out how to use a gas can. And he has two cats. One is obese and orange. I just learned that all orange cats are male. The other is called the mirror cat. It sits on the window ledge directly across from my bedroom and looks exactly like my cat Bogart. Sometimes Bogart sees it and cranes his neck with curiosity. I would too.

I love where I live.