Oh, Neighbors.

This is a story about keeping composure, diffusing agitation, managing empathy, and handling difficult situations with calmness and compassion.

It was an early Wednesday afternoon in Maryland, and the clouds were parting to reveal a glistening sun following a long rain. My artist friends and I shared an apartment here, where we birthed an online business that we would continue to run together long after. COVID uproar had sent the local area into a strange fog, and people acted strange. We seemed to be a small handful of beings that kept their composure and didn’t raid the toilet paper at the local stores in a panic. As empaths, we learned to persevere through that cloud of energy that shifted with each day’s news reels and social dramas. It felt like we held the peaceful frequency for the area, regardless of how heavy and dark the neighboring collective emotions could get. And it felt easier every day to cultivate peace where there seemingly was not.

I stirred a spoonful of seamoss gel into a cup of shilajit tea as I gazed into the warm sun. My roommate Liam strode past me onto the bottom floor porch, grabbing his tools to begin working on art projects for the day. I was thinking about getting changed to do the same. Lots of jewelry orders had been coming in, blowing both our minds at how far our dedication really could bring us. He began torching a copper ring, delicately applying the solder to the clockwise-twisted metal.

Suddenly, something fell from above onto his hand and leg. He yelled “Aw, fuck no!” I looked over, startled. He was whirling about, looking at himself in disgust, and looking up at the porch the story above us. “Fuck no!” He yelled again, louder. He burst in the doorway and glared at me.

“Did what I think just happened just happen?” I asked.

Liam gritted his teeth and nodded. “It’s on me bruh. I’m going to go scream into my pillow and shower.” I nodded back, and he walked away in a buddhic sort of silent rage.

I shook my head to myself. The neighbors above us had decided to let the dog go to the bathroom on the porch outside, so they wouldn’t have to take it out the door in fear of COVID. They would lay baby diaper pads all over the floor of the porch, but nevertheless, the urine and feces and God-knows-what-else would fall through anyway. It began to be an everyday thing, each day progressively worse than the other. My roommates and I were surprised at how patient we could be. Maybe we just wanted to believe that people existed who had common sense. Either way, we had called a couple times to the front office to ask them to make sure they weren’t trippin, because they weren’t the only ones in the complex who were doing stuff like this. I knew that today was the day to have a difficult conversation. It felt weirder because it would also be the first thing I ever said to them.

I walked up the stairs of the apartment building to the door right above mine, and I knocked on the door. I had to knock a few times. The footsteps sounded like I was being waited out, so the door wouldn’t have to be opened. Finally, a shirtless man opened the door and looked at me dully. I said quite dryly, and no less comically blunt than I had imagined to myself earlier: “Hi, we’ve never met, I live beneath you, nice to meet you. I know this is weird to have to say, but your dog keeps pissing and shitting on our porch through the wood, and it just got on one of us today. If you could possibly take it outside instead that would be great.”

The man paused for a moment to absorb everything I had said, and then said “Okay.” And that was it. So, I said “Okay” too, and spun on my heels and skipped down the stairs all flamboyantly because I always have to emphasize the awkward moments. He looked after my departure and then closed the door. I heard the hurried stomps of his spouse before I even returned to my own crib. She was on the staircase before I had closed my front door. I had just enough time to tell my just-awoken roommate Stephen everything that had happened, and get him all riled up about it, before she was at the door too. I grabbed a crystal I would be wrapping soon, Black Seraphinite, and shoved it in my pocket. It seemed to let me know it was just what I needed.

Stephen went for the door, but he’s an Aries with a Grand Cross and some Aldebaran death wish, so I gave him the CBD vape and told him to puff it 3 times for every cuss he wanted to throw. That he did, he drained a gram cart in 15 minutes. I think that’s a record.

I opened the door, and a woman in a cozy pink bathrobe and big glasses stared deep into my soul. She looked me up and down, and said dryly as she revisited my gaze, “You said some slick shit to my husband, but you haven’t gotten to hear what I got for you.”

I smiled, breathing calmly, and held my hand out to her warmly. “By all means, let’s hear it.”

“You have the nerve to confront me about how I take care of my animal in my own home, while you guys live like this down here?”

I looked around at the crystal-covered apartment. “I mean, who needs furniture when you have a yoga mat?”

She rolled her eyes, and changed the subject to avoid my jest, hardening her tone. “Seriously, you talk about smell? All day long, all I smell is y’all smoking weed. I can’t open my fucking windows, all I smell is what y’all smoking.”

Stephen squeaked in between vapor clouds, “It’s hardly comparable.”

“Bullshit it is,” she retorted.

“Actually no,” I said, “your animal left unattended, dripping feces on us underneath your diaper-covered porch is barely comparable to whatever we decide to burn in this apartment building.”

She laughed a bit at that part. “Oh yes, what was it y’all burned and walked all around the halls with? Sage? That shit makes me choke, I still can’t get the smell out the room.”

I shrugged, thinking to myself that the discomfort with the aroma of sage just means the spirit has found a sensitive spot of energy in need of clearing. I said, “Well, perhaps we can come to some understanding and compromise, regardless of the fact that these things are still incomparable.”

The woman seemed annoyed with this, breathing out sharply through her nose and adjusting herself. After playing with her clothes for a moment, she looked at me again and exhaled, “Okay, what is this compromise? I watch the porch more and you filter your incense habits?”

“It’s a bit deeper than that,” I said. “I need you to be more involved with your dog. I have been the one to train all the dogs in my immediate family, and I have been a trainer for the animals of family and friends. I would like to give you my very honest and respectful advice that this dog needs much more attention, exercise, and gentleness than it is receiving right now.”

My neighbor didn’t say anything. She seemed frozen in time, but she was with me as I spoke. I paused here to share that moment with her. I thought about including what I had heard through the transparent walls many times over, usually angry voices and louds thuds, in between the door opening and slamming, the poor thing being kicked outside or pulled back in. I did not want to fill in gaps with assumptions, but it seemed like it was a very unfriendly environment for the animal. I meditated on this and then continued.

“I hope you can receive me with peace and respect, I can tell you work hard for your family, and these are really weird times. But trust me, I’ve worked with these animals all my life, and that dog is not fully content. You can tell in his disposition.” I raised my eyebrows. “That porch is fresh air, but is not a replacement for walks, chasing the ball, swimming, and anything else you guys do together. Hell, if you get on a schedule of 2 or 3 walks every day, he’ll be more predictable, and may actually start to go to the bathroom when you want him to!”

I paused again to see if she had anything to say, but she just kept thinking and listening. I couldn’t think of any points to add, so I just swung my arms a bit and glanced at the sun coming through the glass. As I did, I caught a boy and his dad in the distance throwing a ball. “I was always grateful to grow up with a dog, because it got everyone out of their stagnant energy. Because it has so much energy, it’s gotta get outside and play. So, as a family pet, the whole family has gotta learn to play too.” I made eye contact with her again, and she was looking at me much more intently now. “I don’t have that relationship with my family anymore. You enjoy it. Get out in the grass and get some sunshine with your kids. You won’t regret it. Everyone will be happier.”

We looked at each other a while. The sun got brighter and brighter, and the shading in the room got so funky it felt almost like a dream. Stephen looked from one face to the other, vape still hanging out of his mouth. The man I had talked to upstairs peered his head around the door frame. He didn’t come in or say anything, he just sort of floated nearby.

The lady shook off the moment, brushed herself off, and said, “I expect that smoke to calm down.”

I nodded as she turned to leave. “Indeed. And hey.” She turned back to look at me. “Thank you for talking.” She gave a curt smile and closed the door. I turned the Black Seraphinite over in my hand as I turned back to the room.

Later in the week, about five days after this story, I skated home from work and passed the woman outside the apartment building, in the grass with 3 of her children, playing with the puppy in the beautiful summertime sunlight. She was so immersed, and her smile was bigger than I’d ever seen her wear. She noticed me after I’d passed them, as I opened the door, and she nodded at me. With joy in my heart, I went inside to chill and make some food.