By Jamie Borgan
“Thanks for the spinach,” my neighbor says as he walks to the gas station across the street from my house. The gift of spinach had been a spontaneous goodwill gesture one morning, when he and several friends had been returning from that same gas station across the street.
At the time, I was in the midst of a fence-building project to replace a section of the snow-battered chain link fence that ran the length of the yard. An onslaught of ice and snow through the winter had left it curiously undulating. Having moved onto a busy corner of a busy neighborhood (a friend of mine describes the neighborhood as “angsty”) it seemed somehow fitting to factor in the notion of privacy as I planned this sorry fence’s replacement. So, after having weighed such nebulous factors as safety, aesthetics, durability, and environmental impact, I’d found what I thought was a crafty compromise between a solid 
wall and a chain link spider web. The fence was to be six foot cedar, with spaces between the boards, so as to allow visibility in and out, as well as a sense of privacy.
As my neighbor passed by that morning, he commented on the progress of the fence, and I felt a familiar sense of ambivalence at the barrier I was creating between me and “them,” whoever “they” are on the other side. With earnest solicitude, I asked him what he thought of it. His response was nonchalant.
“I like it,” he replied with a dismissive shoulder shrug, undoubtedly wondering why my brow had furrowed as I asked his opinion. I hastily launched into an explanation of what my thinking had been behind the construction of the fence, even mentioning how a trip to Seattle had inspired the pedestal toppers that decorated the fence posts. His response was again minimal, slightly uninterested, maybe a bit perplexed at my inquiry. To somehow add a modicum of normalcy to the interaction, I asked him if he’d like some spinach from the yard. To this, he responded with an enthusiastic, “Sure!” I quickly cut a bag of greens and handed it to him with the directive of cooking it with eggs for his breakfast. He thanked me and walked on, surely feeling much less “angsty” about the exchange than I.
There are probably enough miles of fence in my West Central neighborhood to encircle the whole county, even though I’m obviously still unclear and unsettled as to what we’re fencing in, or out.
Truth is, from the breaking of ground for the first post, the fence project had been laying a guilt trip on me. All spring long, I had worked at altering the backyard space, rototilling the yard immediately upon moving into the house, recruiting friends to help build raised beds, and feeling that strange sense of delight and ownership that comes from hopefully watching the ground for signs of green persistence after burying veggie seeds in the welcoming soil. The backyard transformations made for endless chatter between me and passing neighbors, as they leaned against the wobbly chain link fence, commenting on the progress of my earth-moving endeavors. And now, in fencing in my little patch of earth I fear that I’ve created a barrier to the easy-flowing conversation that had accompanied my work in the backyard.
So now I find myself trying to compensate with added doses of neighborliness. I’m full to bursting with a desire to hold an unending barbecue for my neighborhood, passing out hamburgers and snow cones to every person that walks by the house and asking them if they’d like to come watch a slide show of my vacation photos. Yet, in constructing this barrier, I also know that I’ve wanted to definitively assert that there’s a threshold between the sidewalk they trod and the dirt that nourishes my veggies.
I’m not alone in this drama. There are probably enough miles of fence in my West Central neighborhood to encircle the whole county, even though I’m obviously still unclear and unsettled as to what we’re fencing in, or out. The fences are probably as psychologically important as they are pragmatic, although I was grateful to have a fence the night that a vehicle in pursuit of a stolen car rounded my corner at full speed, coming close to hitting the three teenagers who stood in my yard watching the whole scene unfold. I’m also grateful for the neighbors’ fences when I go for my morning jog, and a vociferous dog is kept in his own territory by a cyclone fence.
My neighbor’s leaving the market now, a plastic bag in hand. He walks by the house again, raises a hand in greeting, and walks home, staying politely and without comment on his side of the fence.
