(Left to right) Sarah Nahar, Belén Nahar, Mouna Ammar, Melissa Jeffery, Jeff Tenza, Melissa Shannon-Hagen, Amber Lisowicz, Lydia Mitchell, and Jaye Starr gather at Carpenter Elementary. | Doug Coombe
If someone tells you an island exists in Ann Arbor, you’d do well to believe them. This island sits boldly between rushing Carpenter to the west and trickling Golfside to the east, roaring Washtenaw Ave. to the north, and thrumming Packard to the south. The beating heart of this island is Carpenter Elementary, and what better heart might any island ask for than a place of discovery and learning, friendship, and a grand grassy space for play. Some say this island extends as far north as Clark and as far south as Center Valley, the little street that winds into a residential neighborhood flanking the tree side of the strip mall housing Target, KPOT, and other shops. That, however, I can’t confirm because it requires some argumentative adventure, and adventure, as we all know, makes us late for dinner. What I can confirm is that our island invites and challenges us, regularly, to be the most caring version of ourselves.
As an overtly Muslim woman, who has experienced her fair share of everything from bias and discrimination to solidarity and sweeping graciousness and kindness, our island’s embrace has been a source of much inspiration, frequent awe, a few headscratching moments, and minimal headaches. Our island neighborhood is one that genuinely welcomes all.
We gather for spontaneous backyard bonfires and Halloween driveway pizza parties with spooky, creative trunk-or-treats complete with fog machines and cauldrons of full-sized and hard-to-find candy. We remind each other to close our garages when we, er, I, forget to close them after a long day at work. Kids bike and scooter around the streets, walk to school, sell baked goods, and crisscross yards to play ball, jump on trampolines, watch a football game, or make sidewalk chalk drawings. If it sounds idyllic, that’s because we do what we can to make it so.
Like many neighborhoods, we are a mix of families with children and elders. Like many neighborhoods, we have a private Facebook page, but if you’re among the increasing number of social media escapees, other neighbors will happily share with you what gets posted or help you post about your adventurous pet who somehow is out in the cold without you. (In fact, the page has a section of pet pics, names, and owners to aid in reuniting pets and their humans.)
Extending a hand goes well beyond pet location. When we lose power, the neighbors with lights still on offer to keep perishables in their own fridges. During winter, our elders hire our teens to shovel snow. In summer, they hire them to mow lawns, and in fall, everyone hires them to rake the endless autumn leaves. It’s not a bad way to live, being able to rely on one another.
When I first moved here, in the thick of the pandemic lockdown, I quickly realized just how beautiful of an island the winds of chance swept us to, and I nicknamed it, without a bit of irony or corn, Awesomeville.
Six years later, I think the Awesomeville nickname is still well-deserved, and for countless reasons. The school mailbox needed a repaint—one of the local dads stepped up. A family lost their home to a fire—we raised funds, collected necessities, and checked in. An elderly father with dementia wanders the neighborhood on occasion—we call his family to retrieve him, or we walk him back home. We lost an elderly couple to a nighttime hit-and-run at a dark intersection, so we successfully petitioned the township to install more lights. When the local school district board of trustees held an election, we hosted candidates for front yard chats and Q&As.
And now, during the past year and a half of the struggles where we fear greatly for our more vulnerable neighbors, our community has banded together more closely than ever. Our regular community-wide potlucks are a highlight of the month. The school offers space, and neighbors talk about needs and resources, catch up on life, break bread, exchange recipes, and offer ways to carry burdens together.
Our island neighborhood is the special community it is not because of where it’s located, or some magical aspect of Arbor–Ypsi border fluidity peculiar to this corner of town. The fact is, we neighbors become home for one another with our everyday ways of showing up, from the fun stuff to the tougher stuff, and much in between.