The secret nice things about where you live

Every few weeks at around 10pm or so a man walks by my house singing opera in a booming baritone. When it happens I run to the window to listen, and exclaim to my boyfriend, “he’s back”. I’m always afraid that one day he might stop singing.

One time I think I saw him on the ferry. I overheard two older women saying to the man beside them, “We hear you singing when you walk by,” and the other one said, “We just love it so much.” The man was surprisingly reedy and youthful, and he looked both embarrassed and pleased by his blue-rinse set neighbourhood fan club.

The mysterious night baritone got me thinking about other things that make a neighbourhood special, in a low-key, ordinary kind of way. Like the cafe that puts out a bowl of water for dogs, or the weeping willow tree in the park at the end of your street, or the pastry shop that throws in an extra croissant because you are a regular and also because you are greedy.

Just like getting to know your neighbours, stopping to notice the nice things about your suburb can sometimes fall by the wayside when you’re stressed about your mortgage, or the grass needs mowing, or the guy in the queue at the pastry shop bought the last of your favourite pastries and you’re legitimately considering tackling them for it.

The thing is though, as anyone who’s ever been to a mindfulness course (which feels like everybody at the moment, right?) will tell you, there’s a lot to be said for pausing and being in the moment. For focusing.

At a recent mindfulness talk that I went to (ha!) one of the presenters – an inordinately calm and radiant looking type – spoke about the distractions of modern living. You know, ooh, look at that new house, ooh someone just posted their renovation pics on Facebook, ooh should we make our kitchen counters marble or slate?  These distractions, she said, are polluting our “beautiful brains”.

So in the quest for a beautiful brain, here are a few ways that you can appreciate the nice things about your neighbourhood – and practise a little bit of mindfulness at the same time. Because let’s face it, the philosophy is coming for you whether you’re into it or not.  

1. Walk home a different way. Not only will this allow you to see your neighbourhood in a new way and allow you to potentially discover new and excellent things, but it makes you actually look at your surrounds and figure out where you’re going, rather than being on auto-pilot. A solid metaphor for life, actually! And as a bonus, studies show that changing up a regular routine creates new pathways in the brain – so you know, it’s backed up by science and all.

2. Have a coffee in your local cafe and don’t take a book, and definitely not your phone. I know that second one is momentously hard, but really, there’s more than enough Instagrams of latte art in the world, don’t you think? Instead, focus just on the coffee, what it tastes like, the “mouth feel” as coffee snobs are want to say. Maybe even make eye contact and conversation with the barista and the other patrons. Subversive, huh?

3. When it gets a bit warmer, pack up your dinner in Tupperware and take it to the local park/beach/patch of green in your suburb. A picnic in your neighbourhood shakes up the humdrum of the every day, and it kind of feels like a mini-holiday – which is entirely worth the eternal awkwardness of eating off a plate while sitting cross-legged on the grass.

4. Go to one of the restaurants that’s been in your suburb forever that you’ve never tried because it looks a bit daggy. They’ve lasted for a reason. An added bonus if it’s one of the few neighbourhood Chinese restaurants still doing that alarmingly fluorescent yellow sweet and sour pork. Don’t pretend you don’t love it.

5. Really notice things in your neighbourhood – the elderly woman who tap dances in her apartment at 4pm, the squeaky swing set at the park, the scent of your neighbour’s jasmine on a spring afternoon. It’s the little things that give life an undeniable sweetness, after all.