Stooping

It's not new to me, or to anyone who's lived in Baltimore for awhile--people love to sit on their stoops. I agree that this is a great method for advancing camaraderie in city neighborhoods. It's also a great way to escape these narrow houses we live in that are a little more than glorified trailers; long and narrow. Recently I've had to adjust to stoop shares, you know, like time shares, except it's not some fabulous beach house in Belize. Just four steps on a Baltimore street that lead into my house. They're not even the fancy, cooling marble ones. They're brick; chipping brick. For some reason, my stoop is the one preferred over the 100 others on my street. Sometimes I get home around 3pm. Tired, cranky, ready to bite someone's head off since teenagers have been biting my head off all day. As I walk towards my house I see I'm going to have to make niceties with the 5-person family hanging out on my stoop. "How's it going ya'll?" I inquire genuinely. "Hey, great," "Beautiful day isn't it?" and I even get a, "How was your day?" from my visitors. It was the first time that day that someone asked me how I felt. "You know," I said, "I'm worn out actually." A chorus of concerns came from the family. I squeezed past them to get inside. Shortly thereafter I returned with an extra chair and a pitcher of lemonade. I began to talk about my day as the older woman, probably the grandmother, poured us drinks. If one good deed deserves another, then I've staked out the stoop I'm going to visit next week. I hope they're just as appreciative of my presence as I was of my stoop share family.