By: Kelly Williams

After almost seven years of living in a place I loved, I decided to move in search of more room – more room for the same amount of rent and in Chicago, that meant moving west, away from the lake.

My initial searches were disappointing – more rooms didn’t necessary mean a bigger space or as nice of a space as my current place and many of the neighborhoods I explored were still “up and coming.” And then I found it…a three-story brownstone in the charming German neighborhood known as Lincoln Square, only two miles from the lake and a very nice walk for me.

My landlords live on the first floor. They are an elderly Greek couple who have owned and lived in this building for the last 30 years. As we are learning to communicate (their English is limited and my Greek is undiscovered), I have a sense that at one time several generations of their families lived in these units.

I see my landlords almost daily as I pass up and down the back stairs – sitting on their deck, working in the beautiful organic garden or cooking in the kitchen. Like them, I’ve come to leave my back door open, in part to let the breeze drift in through the screen door, but also because there is a sense of community.

The day after I moved in, as I was unpacking boxes in the dining room, I noticed two little faces pressed up against my screen door. I had been told a Hispanic family of five lived above me and my unexpected visitors confirmed this – their grandmother was upstairs, their parents at work. The two girls took a stroll through my apartment, asking some questions – curious and interested in their new neighbor, and on their way out they said, “We love you,” and blew me a kiss.

In the past seven years I maybe saw and spoke with my old neighbors a handful of times – “How are you?” and “Isn’t this weather great.” I lived in a large, beautiful building, six units within each section with a courtyard in the middle and I can only confidently tell you the names of four of my old neighbors. There was a back door, with a screen, in all of our units, but it led to an enclosed back stairwell and it wasn’t tradition to keep it open.

My new neighborhood brings with it a sense of connection, community, family – an old neighborhood that is evolving even as we speak. It has tradition, diversity and a kind of warmth I find difficult to describe.

For years I had the lake a block away and loved it. Now I have the open screen door that leads to the deck, the amazing aromas that float in through it and the kindness and hospitality of my newest neighbors. While verbal communications are a mixture of German, English, Spanish and Greek, a smile in any language easily translates. And so does a warm plate of homemade stuffed peppers, hand picked from their garden, prepared minutes before from scratch, and delivered to my back door last night for dinner.

How lucky am I? It may be that I have landed in a place where it is impossible to miss the very essence of being connected.