On the Block

Tea: Mandarin Orange (iced)

Music: Don Henley, "Sunset Grill"

Time: Evening.

I like to think I live in a neighborhood, rather than a subdivision. We know the names of the people who live close to us. We attend neighborhood Christmas parties, shovel snow next door, and -- when we're in town -- take part in the Fourth of July mini-parade around the block.

Still, though, it strikes me that the suburban experience is still largely a back of the house thing. We grill on the deck, rather than sitting on the front porch watching the world go by.

A good chunk of me envies the people for whom the stoop is the neighborhood gathering place, the sidewalk a river bringing a cargo of interactions.

(And no having to mow the grass. There's another plus.)

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind having the green space and the shade. But I think the farther our houses get from each other, the more we lose something intangible -- that sense of really being next door to someone.