Let’s start with the bigger picture. When someone thinks of my city, they imagine skyscrapers with thousands of strangers passing by, hardly saying a word to one another. They imagine taxis honking at pedestrians and blinding city lights. We’re known for our fast-paced culture, our jam-packed subways, and our iconic pizza style. However, when you zoom into each individual neighborhood, what you find are unique families related not by blood but by their lifestyles. After all, a neighborhood is made of its people.
My neighborhood might seem like any other, but to its inhabitants, it is so much more. I’ll focus on my block. The smell of spices floods the street, with strangers turning their heads, trying to find the source. Is it Greek cuisine? Chinese cuisine? Desi cuisine? Italian cuisine? The truth is that it’s all of them. People from all over the world live on my block, but that’s what strengthens our bond. We all have our differences, yet we choose to learn from one another. Boxes of food go from house to house, truly making us a family. Everyone knows each other, and the friendly conversations are what I cherish from my childhood.
In my neighborhood, there is no such thing as being alone. My dad is known for his barbecues, and they’re not limited to just the people living in our house. Our family consists of everyone around us. A barbecue means that everyone on the block is invited. Neighbors brings whatever they have at home, whether it be a cherry pie, a bag of chips, or homemade juice. My backyard goes from being just my dad wearing his classic salmon pink polo with dark jeans to being full of people wearing reds, greens, yellows, and blues. There’s great people, great food, and great laughs; in conclusion, the concoction to a perfect party.
The gatherings are just one piece of our lives, but every single part of the block shows our bonds, including the nature. I have a peach tree in front of my house, and it’s just a few months younger than me. Every summer, we have hundreds of fresh red peaches that get shared and turned into jams, pies, cobblers, strudels, and more. I prefer to eat them when they’re so plump that the juices gush out after just one bite. We wouldn’t have any of this without our Italian neighbors who gifted us a branch from their own tree. Even after their tree died, ours lived on. In the same way, even after one family moves away, either to another area or to Heaven, the memories with them live on.
Speaking of Heaven, one particular family is quite special: the Marsanicos. Lucy and Vincent Marsanico were the first ones who showed me that neighbors should never be strangers. Every hot summer day, they sat on their porch – for their house was the only one on the block with a porch – and waved to any person who walked past them. Over time, people would stop and have brief conversations with the Marsanicos. I, on the other hand, didn’t understand the definition of brief as a child. I would sit there for hours playing word games, eating fruit loops, and telling them about everything that had happened that day. My mom would end up apologizing to them, but they said that they were just happy to have company.
In a way, you could say I knew them better than my own grandparents. They kept track of my accomplishments, my birthdays, and apparently how fast I was growing up. It all changed on February 9th, 2020, when Vincent Marsanico passed away. Today, I look back and remember how he fixed my bike every time the chain fell off and invited me over for cream puffs and apple juice after every major test. Lucy is still as dear to me as ever, and one day, after this pandemic, she’ll get to teach me how to crochet, like she always wanted.
I know that eventually, I will move out of this neighborhood, but I can picture myself coming back to find it exactly how I left it. There will be new people who bring new traditions, but our blended culture will last forever: boxes of food will still be passed around and the conversations will never end.