neighbor craig and a cuppa
Top 5 Reasons to Invite Your Neighbor for a Cuppa
Mr. Rogers was onto something.
You might get a great story.
You might get homemade jam.
Dogs are excellent icebreakers.
Community doesn't build itself.
The Highlight of His Week
We have a neighbor in West County Sonoma named Craig.
Craig is a legend.
He moved here from Berkeley sometime in the 1980s—and in his 80’s—and never seems to have stopped doing things. He gardens. He prunes fruit trees with the precision of a surgeon. He grows grapes. He makes jam. He has a workshop where he builds furniture and, at one point, helped a neighbor turn two massive tree beams into a beautiful tabletop.
If you passed Craig on the road, you'd probably notice the Cal visor first.
Then the dog.
There has always been a dog.
For years it was Pete, a faithful Shih Tzu companion. These days it's Raji, the next generation.
During the pandemic, because Craig was a few decades older than me, I offered to pick up groceries for him when I went shopping.
Craig, naturally, refused to leave the relationship unbalanced.
Every week he offered half a loaf of bread.
"I can't possibly get through a whole loaf," he'd say.
Soon a jar of homemade jam appeared too.
Apricot. Plum. Grape.
The kind of jam that comes from someone who actually knows the trees it came from.
Over the years, Craig became part of the rhythm of our road.
When Sandy and I were in Melbourne, texts would arrive:
A section of your fence fell over while PG&E was working on the lines.
Or:
There's a car in your driveway I don't recognize.
Or my personal favorite:
Tell Sandy I'm saving some really good apricot jam for her.
Craig had also navigated aging parents before us. He had moved his own mother into a local board-and-care home, where she eventually passed away at 100.
He sent political cartoons. Shared articles. Kept an eye on things.
In short, he was being a good neighbor.
The funny thing is that for years we'd see him walking down the road and say exactly the same thing.
"Craig, we need to have a cuppa."
"We do."
Then we'd all continue walking.
For years.
Finally, this trip, it happened.
Maybe it was because another neighbor had recently passed away. Maybe we were finally smart enough to stop postponing things.
Whatever the reason, we made a date.
Sandy: "Craig, let's catch up over a cuppa."
Craig: "Great. I'm free Thursday from 2 to 3."
Very Craig.
Sandy: "Perfect."
Craig: "I know a place that has the best scones. I'll bring them."
Sandy: "Fabulous."
Craig: "Can I bring Raji?"
Sandy: "Of course."
They both looked at me.
The invitation had clearly become a committee decision.
Thursday morning a text arrived:
"I scored the scones! (As we used to say in the '60s.)" Wink emoji.
"Sugar rush on the way."
Craig arrived with Raji and the scones.
The cuppa that was supposed to last an hour stretched past four o'clock.
We talked about neighbors. Aging parents. Dogs. Gardens. Sonoma County. Life.
The kind of conversation that's increasingly rare because nobody seems to have time for it anymore.
When Craig left, he asked if he could occasionally park in our driveway when he brought Raji to our end of the road to socialize with the neighborhood dogs.
"Of course," we said.
What are neighbors for?
A few days later, another text arrived.
"I just wanted to thank you for a really pleasant afternoon hanging out on your deck. That was definitely the highlight of my week."
I stared at the message for a moment.
Because that's the thing about aging that nobody tells you.
Sometimes the big gestures matter.
But often it's the small ones.
The cup of tea you finally schedule.
The conversation you stop postponing.
The neighbor who checks on your house.
The homemade jam.
The dog curled up at your feet.
The chance to remind someone—and yourself—that you're not doing life alone.
And yes, if you're lucky, you get the jam too.
dōte.worthy:
this article explains why it is still a beautiful day for a neighbor.
anecdōtes:
Welcome to anecdōtes, our weekly writing prompt for those of us taking care of aging loved ones while simultaneously googling “am I having a midlife crisis or is this just Tuesday?”
This Week’s Writing Prompt:
If you could bottle the feeling of a good neighbor, what would it smell like? taste like? feel like? what would it be called?
dōt.age exists because we’re all navigating the uncharted territory of caring for aging parents, and we need to share our stories.
This isn’t about being a writer—it’s about being human and sharing our messy, unfiltered truths of eldercare.
Each week, we’ll drop a prompt.
You write for five minutes.
No polish, no pressure—just permission to be gloriously imperfect.
If you want to share what you wrote, send it our way and we’ll share it on our Substack so we can all feel a little less alone in this wild mixtape that is our lives.
SEND TO: LNahmie@gmail.com