Neighbor gossip in Stuff

I’m looking at my nude neighbor while I type this. It’s really not as weird as it may sound, in the sense that she lays nude in her yard nearly every sunny afternoon in the summer to the point where it doesn’t startle me at all anymore. My bedroom is the top floor of our home and her yard is only visible from my bedroom window (I’ve checked this to be sure) so I’m not worried that my kids are spying on her. I, for the most part, give her her privacy too.

Of course, if I can see her from my window that means she can see my window and therefore has to know there’s at least a possibility that someone is up here that can see her. She’s either oblivious to that or doesn’t care, and my guess is she doesn’t care.

The family that used to live next door kept to themselves for the most part. I can’t claim to be an expert on everything that happened over there. But people in the neighborhood talk, and it is an interesting story, to say the least.

Single mother with three kids. The youngest and oldest were girls and the middle child was a boy. At first, this seems like a very similar situation to my own. All the kids are older than mine, so they didn’t mingle at school and were never friends despite being neighbors.

I think the first time I stopped and wondered what was up with them was a time I was right here in my bedroom and noticed the son was outside in the yard wearing a fluffy pink robe. It was one of those things that you can’t help but notice, although it didn’t really matter. Boys can dress however they want, I certainly feel that way about my own children.

In the year or so that passed after that, it became known in the neighborhood that the son was becoming a woman. I’d see him from time to time dressed in women’s clothes politely acknowledge him. And when it was clear that he was officially a she, I started using the appropriate female pronouns and not making a big deal about it. I’m in no place to question someone else’s happiness as it derives from gender or sexuality. We started to talk about the family next door having three girls and that was fine.

I’m jumping ahead in the story but I’ll say that several years later I ended up having a very long talk one day out in the yard with this transgender daughter and I never would have guessed she was born male if I hadn’t know. She ended up being a surprisingly natural and feminine woman.

It seemed like a lot of things started happening with the family all at once after that. Every time I’d see a neighbor they’d talk about that particular family with the have you heard this one?! type gossip that we all love to share.

The mother came out of the closet and married a woman. This is Jamaica Plain, the lesbian capital of Boston, so this didn’t raise any eyebrows except for the fact that no one saw it coming.

I’d once caught a view of a whole assortment of nudity in their yard from my window. I’d heard rumors that the family had discovered nudism and that they all hung out around the house naked together. Although I guess I never had hard 100% confirmation of this, my many glimpses of things lead me to believe it was true.

The rumors started flying that the oldest daughter was an adult film star, and I didn’t believe that at first until another neighbor sent me a link to one of her videos. She was prolific in the industry and if I could remember her stage name I’d gladly share it now.

The youngest daughter got pregnant in high school and had a second child not long after that.

Eventually the mother and her wife moved away somewhere and the kids lived alone in the house. I’m not sure if the porn star daughter was there with them or if it was just the other two and the babies.

But then they both moved away and I was certain the house was empty for a time. I kept expecting to see a for sale sign out front. It’s a nice house. I’m sure it would sell for a lot of money. Then the oldest daughter resurfaced there alone. It’s been I think three years now of the oldest daughter living there apparently alone and sunning herself in the backyard.

I don’t get the impression she works, and it’s possible I suppose that she supports herself off porn money in savings. She’s personable enough, we’ve had an assortment of conversations over the years and it’s always pleasant. Part of me wonders if she’s just become an old maid in her early 30’s and is happy with a life of solitude.

No real point to any of this, just a little bit of the interesting history that is contained in one house. I wonder what my neighbors would say about my house if they were to write something similar about us.