i heart my neighborhood

I have a tragic love/hate relationship with my neighborhood. I've lived here in the home that I share with my husband for over three years. In this time I've created a tiny family, made new relationships, gone through personal losses, purged enough clothing for every Gap in America, learned how not to garden, created art and loved like I've never loved--all in my home. I am thankful for this place.

The neighborhood is nestled much like a kidney between the bustling and trashed northern end of the University District of The Ohio State University and the quaint southernmost end of "Clintonville"--a village of sorts that features craft-style homes, quiet streets and 30/40 something's who fear the leap into suburbia--so they hold on for dear life.

The fact that the area is in flux/semi-despair makes it somewhat sexy. There are lots of working class folk, rockers, artists, university folk, professionals, hipsters and elders who call this kidney space home. It's grungy exterior in itself makes irresistible note of the softness and beauty that must reside within the tiny to mid-sized dwellings. And a good number of first-time homebuyers rejoice with new properties they bought for 0% down--a major draw for those in debt and without a nest egg.

About 40% of the time though, I loathe this neighborhood. I typically voice the same laundry list of complaints:

air pollution from cars, planes, and trains
deteriorating homes (with ours slowly joining the lot)
dead smelling trash in the alley
speeding cars (our street is a major vein out of downtown and campus)
3 a.m. fireworks
drug dealers
loud porch parties
a weird and anti-social neighbor who I know is keeping something or someone in his basement
unfinished eyesore properties
the occasional roaming pit bull or t-shirted poodle

And this is just my block.

But at night, I am especially grateful for all the life around me. And it's all pretty unintentionally unique and genuine. I would appreciate the silence and clean air outside of the city, but I think it'd miss the gifts this area gives me every day. The trash in the alley eventually gets cleaned up. And the fireworks stop. And the dealers move and deal somewhere else. The air pollution I'll give away any day, but the sincerity of this neighborhood, no. Can't get that in the suburbs.

Thanks, Neighborhood!