“Pandemic Puppies” by Lily Sternlieb ’24

Read freshman Lily Sternlieb’s touching reflection on the events that strengthened the connections within her neighborhood.

Pandemic Puppies

We used to have block parties. Kids rode scooters clumsily up and down the streets, their rusty wheels creating more sparks than the semi-illegal fireworks sputtering in the July sky. Three plastic tables cringed under the weight of slightly overcooked barbeque and charred hot dogs. My mom’s fruit salad lay off to the side with a dozen types of multi-colored fruit cut into the same symmetrical blocks, like an edible deconstructed Rubik’s Cube. Our dads sipped out of sweating beer bottles, blasting Ozzy Osbourne and Bon Jovi. We played manhunt and hide and seek, the grass slapping our ankles and exposed feet, our shrieks of laughter overpowering even “Crazy Train”. Some of the older kids played basketball in the back, threading the ball between their legs and through the hoop. I think in those days I really considered my street family. 

Especially one neighbor, Mrs. L. Her house and mine were oddly tied to each other. Built with the same burnt bricks harvested from the rubble of an old hotel, the houses were designed and created as a pair, an idea which mirrored the childhood relationship between me and Mrs. L. In many ways, Mrs. L was like a second mom. She sewed me scarves in December with loose stitches and dime-sized holes. We assembled huge blanket forts in her son’s bedroom, held together by tan scotch tape and thousands of safety pins. After school, I danced to The Beach Boys and The Beatles in her kitchen, and once accidentally slammed into the corner of a cabinet at elementary eye level. After my “serious injury”, Mrs. L carried me from her front door to mine, a distance of thirteen steps, with an ice pack and a Party City eye-patch. When my mom became upset or my dad yelled, my parents would find me several hours later watching Sixteen Candles and American Idol reruns with Mrs. L.

However, as my schedule grew busier, filled with Saturday baseball practices and Tuesday guitar lessons, and as my mind became consumed with school and social cliques, I forgot that we needed each other; I forgot that I needed Mrs. L and the rest of the street. We all found new people to confide in, to dance with, to circulate and spin within our own orbits. The neighborhood, Mrs. L and I left one another behind, turning our attention inward, consumed with our own lives and future. Thus, the separation began. 

Then there was the 2016 election. Down our one long fissured road in the center of town, information about people’s political affiliation and opinions raced through red lights and stop signs, all to reach others’ ears and iPhones. Overnight, my neighbors, the town, and I knew the preferred party and candidate of each adult and child. Cars were soon covered with Democrat or Republican bumper stickers, a whole road of mobile political porcupines. Our free flow of ideas and perspectives solidified into hard inflexible rods planted firmly and stubbornly into our minds, or rather our lawns with campaign signs.

As a kid in elementary school, I didn’t understand Obamacare or the intricacies of the electoral college. The extent of my education in politics was watching “Schoolhouse Rock” videos in history class. However, what I did understand, what we all understood, was that our parents were fueled with this anger, this passion for politics that invaded every conversation and car drive. Friend groups at school began to fall apart, parents’ ideological stances severing relationships between us. New lunch table seating arrangements were eventually determined based on the colors red and blue. No longer were we a community tied through similarities, but individuals unable to close the vast sea of our differences.

And then came the coronavirus. Our gradual separation from each other now became mandated isolation. There were no more mid-morning talks on the edge of lawns or rolling down of windows as the neighbor’s car slowed to a stop. Yes, these interactions had become more awkward, but they were welcome nonetheless. Now loneliness walked down our block, running through the overgrown grass, having its own party. The town was empty, our street was empty, and we were empty. Suburbia had finally turned silent.

Quarantine had rendered our schedules blank, our time endless, and the activities to fill said time very limited. We half-finished 500 piece puzzles and unsuccessfully executed recipes from cookbooks with stiff pages. However, nothing could satisfy our insatiable need to be preoccupied. Everyone on our street deeply desired a distraction, a project that posed a challenge to get consumed in, to fall into, to detract from the burning questions that quarantine had created.

And then came the barking. Little cries, yelps, and whines echoed in our houses and streets, filling the small pockets of silence. The steady absence of sound was replaced with curious grunts and displeased growls. Half dug holes in the ground began to litter our lawns, the dirt thoroughly combed of delicious little bugs and thin worms. Squirrels and birds waited tensely on top of trees, knowing that a new apex predator roamed the suburban wild. Now the roads were speckled with four-pronged paw prints and roamed by our furry new additions, the true catalyst for the block’s reunion: puppies. 

Our puppies, with their wiry fur and paper-cut teeth, pulled us together, tugging at their slippery nylon leashes, and slipping out of their velcro collars to reach one another. The dogs who walked beside us didn’t care about test scores, 9th grade rivalries, or whether our blood spilled toward the left or right, blue or red. They just wanted to have fun and meet other puppies. And they were persistent in their convictions too, sitting stubbornly in other families’ lawns and stumbling over concrete steps, all to claw pleadingly at neighbors’ white wooden doors. And as much as we all individually tried to steer our puppies to develop other canine interests, they were singularly focused on playing with and befriending each other.

So we saw more of our neighbors. There were Sunday playdates and early Monday morning walks. At first, we talked about our dogs, if they preferred peanut butter or Milk-Bones, whether they peed on the carpet or were scared of the mail. But slowly just as our puppies matured so did our conversations. We talked about local pockets of small-town stories and worrisome regional news. We discussed elections and debated what was the best diner on the Jersey Shore. Yes, we were standing six feet apart, but the truth was that 72 inches had been the closest our neighborhood had been to one another in years.

Mrs. L and I saw more of each other too. Our dogs had become best friends, sharing water bowls and matching Halloween costumes. Racing after each other, their floppy ears perked and backs arched, a ball of tousled black and combed white fur. Our puppies ran through the bushes, trampling flowers with their pink paws, communicating in their language of head tilts and nose twitches. The two dogs, both scruffy, small and sweet, became brothers, became family. And as a result, Mrs. L and I started to see each other differently. We talked about Molly Ringwald and pillow forts, about “Twist and Shout” and “Hey Jude” and about old memories and new stories. Slowly, I began to remember who I had needed and who I had forgotten. And I think Mrs. L did too. Our homes, created from the wreckage of something old, a parallel to our lives in more ways than one.

For almost a decade our families had been building up walls, lathering cement on top of slate, infusing memories and emotions into the brittle concrete, until our eyes were no longer able to see over the subconscious barriers we had created. Slowly we had let go of the people formerly so instrumental in our lives. So what was left in the wasteland of our minds were the bad memories, a picture painted only with shadows, rumors, and small mistakes. However, the puppies, with their wiggling tails and rectangular snouts, saw in color and with light. Our dogs brought down our walls, scratching at the plaster until their nails were raw and red, creating tunnels and passages underground with their short stubby legs and headstrong minds. Our street became undivided and borderless once again, a block reunited, tied through new experiences as well as old. And it’s all because of our mischievous, semi-exasperating, playful puppies.