I live in the suburbs. I love living in the suburbs. I like that I can raise my family in a relatively safe place, where I can give my small children relative autonomy, can be close to nature, and still be close to shops and cultural institutions and events.

But I hate the cars. I hate the sprawl. I hate the stroad (street/road and poorly designed for either function). I hate the strip malls. I hate that I can’t walk or bike anywhere. I hate that no one cares.

That last one in particular makes me especially angry. I organized a Labor Day neighborhood clean up in my horrificly generic development. I designed the fliers, printed them out, then glued them to cereal box cardboard so that they would be a bit more sturdy. I taped them around the neighborhood a few days prior and even had a conversation with some neighborhood kids about it while I was hanging up one of those fliers.

Then the day of the clean up… no one showed up except my friend and her son, with whom we already go on regular trash walks.

So my family and our two friends walked around the whole neighborhood and cleaned up after a bunch of people that didn’t care that their yards were littered with trash and that our small strips of green were littered with cigarette butts. No one cares that the outdoor cats of a few houses leave a bunch of mouse corpses around. No one cares that the little strip of woods nearby is a dumping ground for anything and everything.

No one cares that we were out there picking up the trash.

One couple asked us what we were doing from atop their deck. They clearly hadn’t seen the fliers. The kids I had talked to were literally outside seeing us pick up their trash and continued to play in their yard while their mom set up a water slide inflatible.

We got two thank yous from dog walkers and one lady gave the kids some quarters, which was nice.

But as with most things, the negative stuff is what sticks with me.

Every time I go on a trash walk I am astounded by how awful people are. They just really don’t give a shit about their neighbors, or hell, even their own homes. No courtesy for others and no pride in their own spaces.

Meanwhile, I’m getting written notices from the HOA about how my wildflowers are against the rules.

Make it make sense!

What am I supposed to do with this??

I suppose I’m technically not that stuck here. I’m here by choice, not circumstance. If we made it a priority we could save up some money and move elsewhere. But I would still want to live in the suburbs. And this problem is everywhere in America.

The more I ruminated on this problem the more this whole country started feeling a lot less like home. I’ve lived here for the past twenty odd years and never in all that time had I considered it anything other than home despite the shitstorm going on here. But this… this makes me not feel at home.

We bought this house because it was large enough for a small family, was in a seemingly nice little development, and we thought we would only be staying for five years. But surprise, surprise, our plans changed and now we don’t have to move if we don’t want to. And I didn’t want to.

For a while I was energetic and excited about the prospect of really putting down roots here. Making the awkwardly laid out house work for us and really feel like home. Build up my garden over the years, despite its tiny size and make something magical.

I’ve walked around picking up trash and introducing myself to the neighbors and watching other people’s kids while we played outside. I’ve started a neighborhood rock snake and I’ve been doing trash walks at least once a week for the past couple of years. And it never improved. Our neighbors are not our friends but are fakes and flakes at best. The HOA is a pain in the ass that inconsistently enforces conformity. Our school is basically only using screens to teach kids.

There is something to be said about fighting for your home. Really planting your roots and digging in. Doing the hard work to make things better. But why is it this hard. Why does no one else care? Why do I have to be the only one going to school board meetings or township meetings or walking around picking up trash?

Maybe that’s my problem really. I’ve only been to one school board meeting and no township meetings. But I only have so much time to devote to those things and these meetings are always at 6 or 7 on a weeknight – prime family time.

I have been reading a lot about craftivism but I’m starting to get sour on the subject. I can make a bunch of banners, sure. But no one is going to care. I can make a cute rock snake, but it doesn’t matter if someone keeps messing with the sign.

It might just be a couple of people that are littering and actively making things worse. But everyone else just looks at all the trash and does nothing.

I know this is not new. I know I can’t make people care. All I can do is figure out what I’m going to do. I can care. I can care hard enough for all of us.