La Casa Chica: School's Out!

You have found your way to the virtual front stoop of "La Casa Chica," a fitting name for the kind of home I am wanting to create. I hope it will contribute to the growing sense of connection and belonging here in my Central-Cocoanut neighborhood, in the Newtown community of Sarasota, Florida.

La Casa Chica is "the little house," modest in size relative to the other houses on the block and in the neighborhoood.

La Casa Chica is "the enchanted house," with its 1920's Spanish eclectic architecture, its emerging tradition of front-stoop and kitchen conversation, and its resident puppy, Gus.

La Casa Chica is "the home of the beloved child," brought to life through the everyday presence of neighborkids, whose natural inclinations to be social and exuberant generate the special, neighborly spirit of the place.

La Casa Chica is a reclaiming of the legitimate role and relationship of neighbor, which is often less recognized than that of family or professional, but can be powerful and transformative nonetheless.

If Jane Addams were to drop by, I hope that she might recognize La Casa Chica as Hull House reinvented, a century later...

If Jane Jacobs were to drop by, I hope that she might recognize La Casa Chica as an effort to get beyond "the mask of pretended order" that is affecting our community, and to nurture the "real order that is struggling to exist."

If Donald Winnicott were to drop by, I hope that he might recognize La Casa Chica as a place where neighbors choose to get together "to do the things which you can do better than you can be taught to do them."

And if Timothy Leary were to drop by, I hope that he might recognize La Casa Chica as an everyday, real-world, neighborhood-scale embracing of his notion that "the universe is an intelligence test."

But mostly, I hope that my neighbors will drop by.

I am ready to be a neighbor.

Monday, June 7, 2010

School's Out!

Nothing quite matches the exuberance expressed by kids on the last day of school. Here's what that looked like today on the block when I opened the front door:

Kids of different grades, different schools, and different ages (including preschoolers!) marking the occasion with impromptu dancing, flipping, and singing. Yay!

Earlier in the day, I decided to head over to Gocio, the elementary school that most kids in the neighborhood are zoned to attend. I spotted Shy'Yah graduating from 5th Grade, with family members (including her cousin Ray Ray) there to honor her.

Earlier in the week I headed over to Gocio to check out the Renaissance Awards, too, since I'd heard that some of our neighborkids would be honored there as well. Ray Ray's brother James was a big winner, along with Amorie, Holly, and others.

Here is James with his mom, who text messaged his dad in Miami each time James was called up for another award:

What if we begin thinking about neighborhood-school collaboration in terms of partnership that is initiated by neighbors, rather than by schools? What new possibilities might we imagine then?

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