THE CONVERSATION

By Michelle Railey

So, Christmas being for memories, and, like me and nostalgia, being for memories…

There was a time, a million years ago. Or maybe 1983-ish.

Two dumb girls forgot their latch keys (it was the 80s) and couldn’t get into their newish house.

(In fairness, they had just moved in and keys were maybe confused with the prior house, or maybe not, and at any rate, there was no spare hidden under anything that these two cold girls knew of.)

Did I mention? It was cold. Like, snowy Colorado December cold.

Two dumb girls didn’t know what to do. New neighborhood. Cold. A couple hours before parents came home. (A couple hours to two dumb girls feeling much longer than a couple hours to a middle-aged anything).

So. New house on Loomis Avenue, Colorado Springs. Locked up. Two frigid elementary school kids with no key. What were we to do?

We walked across the street. Knocked on the door.

And a grandmotherly type let us in.

Kindly, happily (maybe she liked kids).

She let us sit in the “front room” (parlor/fancy living room).

She presented us with a Santa shaped tray of buckeyes (peanut butter and chocolate), turtles (nuts and chocolate), birds’ nests (rice noodles and chocolate), and assorted Christmas cookies. She clucked over us for a bit and then, weirdly, left us alone. To eat. To wait for our parents. To wonder why she left us so very much alone in her fancy room.

Now, a million years later, someone may have given me a turtle and a buckeye, and I might have flashed back to circa 1983.

I don’t know who those neighbors were back then on Loomis Avenue. It was our only encounter.

We found or got our actual keys; Christmas winter turned to spring to summer.

We, weirdly, never spoke to our across-the-street neighbors again.

But I’ve never forgotten them (okay, her and her front room, her candy tray).

I am still grateful. (Jeez, we would have frozen to death.) (And who doesn’t like Christmas candy and, well, weird privacy.)

Good neighbors. Thank you to them (there was a man in the house we didn’t see but knew was there. I’m sure he approved of the candy tray and front room cold girls).

I could, one supposes, wax “eloquent” (or weird) about the past and neighbors and neighborhoods and the 80s and a million other things.

Instead? I believe there are still good neighbors about. Many of them might let some keyless girl children into their very best “front room” and present them with candy. And then disappear until they magically open a door and let the kids go to their parents.

(It sounds like a fairy tale now, in a strange way. I swear it was true.)

I want to believe in good neighbors and Christmas candy. And, weirdly, the strangely impersonal privacy that some good neighbors can give— even to a couple very cold girls on a December afternoon.

(Thank you, Neighbors on Loomis Avenue. I’ve always been very grateful.)