Neighbouring As A Practice Of Care

: : On Spatial Awareness and or Recognition

The expression of our humanity can then be the key to unlocking this practice of care, but what has spatial awareness got to do with being a good neighbour? I have always thought spatial awareness to mean being aware of ones surrounding, which is really not far from how the experts define it.

“Spatial awareness is the ability to understand your body’s position in relation to your surroundings. It can have impact on everything from picking up a book to navigating social settings.”[1]

—    Jill Seladi-Schulman

In some cases, spatial awareness is also referred to as body space awareness, which is a fundamental skill useful in navigating one’s surroundings with, which helps one interact appropriately with others. [2]

“It’s like having an internal GPS for your body. It’s the ability to know where your body is in relation to other people and objects, and to navigate your surroundings with grace and ease. It also involves understanding social and cultural norms related to personal space.”[3]

—     Marcy Willard

What I did not know was that spatial awareness deficit is attributed to medical conditions such as ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, sensory processing issues to name a few. However, I still want to thread along this path of reasoning cautiously. Is neighbouring dependent on perceiving others within our shared spaces? This is where I am trying to go — I guess I am thinking of whether I can borrow this term “Spatial Awareness” beyond its clinical or cognitive use and to more or less employ it as an ethical tool necessary for care. Of course, I am not holding those genuinely struggling with medically diagnosed conditions at fault while writing this, as opposed to those who, for many reasons, are just not present. What does it mean to be truly present to another person? Perhaps neighbouring begins with attention. To be present to another is already to make room for their humanity, after which any act of assistance follows. The assistance which follows is evidence of recognition, as long as there is an effort of attention.[4] I am reminded of the person whose paper shopping bag tears open, spilling their groceries across the pavement. The temptation is to think that neighbouring begins the moment we stop to help. But perhaps it begins much earlier. Perhaps it begins the moment we pause long enough to ask, even without words, what are you going through? Simone Weil suggests that the fullness of loving our neighbour lies precisely in this attentive gaze. The assistance that follows is merely the outward expression of an inward recognition.[5]

Take, for example, someone so lost in thoughts staring intently at their phone screen that they bump into another person on the sidewalk. I suppose it is along these lines I am thinking.

A mother pushing her little one in a trolley on the sidewalk, comes to a point of the sidewalk where tables and chairs are setup in front of the restaurant as an extension — such a setting they call an alfresco. The path now becomes only wide enough for pedestrians one-way at a time. As the mother begins her journey through the alfresco from one end, I observed, rather than the others on the opposite end waiting aside to let her through, they keep on — creating a mess of a congestion in the middle of people having a Sunday brunch outside. I wonder if self-centredness narrows one’s field of attention. Is this merely a matter of right of way? I am not entirely convinced. The moment we begin to ask who was on the path first, we encounter another layer of complexity — one that depends on perspective. Does being first necessarily absolve us of the responsibility to notice another?

I think of a cyclist on a bike lane… another scenario to ponder on but before I do get there, I step aside for this mother to walk through with her trolley. I am immediately overtaken by another pedestrian who then continues on that narrow path, thinking they would also step aside, however, marched on even though the mother by this time is more than halfway through this path. Are they in a hurry to meet a friend? Is there an emergency they have to attend to? If so, why not take the other sidewalk across the street? What is occupying their capacity to perceive the potential chaos to come from not waiting? What could have been a disaster was averted as a waiter was coming out to serve the guests already seated at the alfresco. I of course have to respect the waiter’s agility and awareness of the situation. One could make the argument that the waiter is probably used to such encounters considering the setting of the restaurant. This then begs the question; what has familiarity got to do with spatial awareness? Does the knowing constitute the skill? Awareness is not simply perception. It is perception cultivated through repeated encounters.

As I continue to contemplate, I observe a woman, maybe in her late forties on her bike, paused in the middle of a bike lane looking at her phone. Several cyclists behind her recognizing her immobility rang their bell frantically to get her attention—she did not budge. Did she hear the warning sounds from the other cyclists? It is tempting to say she may have perceived those sounds without recognizing they were calling for her attention. What if she recognized those sounds but misinterpreted its meaning? The other cyclists manoeuvred their way around her onto the pedestrian walkway. Was she a bad neighbour? Did their ability to manoeuvre without any fatalities make those cyclists good neighbours? And was the one cyclist shouting his frustrations at the woman a good neighbour — because he had to get her attention at all cost, to avert any potential mishaps? She still didn’t budge or move to the side up until the time she was done with her phone and continued riding. Was she hard of hearing, overwhelmed or even in shock?

On another occasion, I encounter another cyclist-bike lane story unfold. To set the scene for you, there is a popular ice-cream place which is always spectacled with long queues. It gets really busy there, as does the stretch of bike lane situated alongside it. They are aware of how crowded both their small space and its surroundings can become, and I know this because I have seen notices saying something along the lines of, “Please do not block access to the entrance of the neighbouring flat” or “Please do not litter or loiter in front of the beautiful salon next door”. Whether these notices came in response to complaints from residents, the salon owner or the building management, I cannot say. What is clear, however, is that the establishment has recognised the impact it has on its neighbours. It demonstrates an awareness of the little space it occupies and of the larger space it inevitably affects. Yet there is only so much the ice-cream shop can control. The queues grow quickly and rarely in predictable ways. Before long, they spill onto the narrow pedestrian path, leaving passers-by with little choice but to step momentarily onto the bike lane before returning to the sidewalk. This could be a quick stepover or a couple of steps until one is off the bike lane.

Here, I begin to wonder: what responsibility falls upon the cyclist who already knows this stretch of road becomes congested every weekend? I have been on both sides of this encounter. I know how frustrating it can be for the cyclist to find pedestrian occupying the bike lane. I also know how overwhelming it can be for the pedestrians, who may feel as though the cyclist have no patience and or empathy. Whose perspective matters? Perhaps both. Can neighbourliness require us to hold both perspectives at once? While enjoying my ice-cream, I witnessed a man walking by, and like everyone else, he was walking on the bike lane to bypass the queue. What was different in this case was that he was walking against the danger—the oncoming cyclists. Perhaps he had anticipated the situation and by his calculation, he would have either been off the bike lane before the cyclist reached him. Or that maybe from his perspective, there was still sufficient room for them both. What I found interesting was that the cyclist made it through, however tough that might have been, but the man still kept walking on the bike lane even after there was ample opportunity to return to the sidewalk. Why?

Does neighbouring mean that we respect and tolerate each other? What does it mean then to respect or tolerate someone? That we all stay in our lane? Definitely not! I think what I am realizing is that there is no generic template to being a good neighbour. There is, in very specific scenarios, some element of needing to be a bad neighbour in order to be a good one. What I am saying is that, it is all a matter of perspective. Let’s say for instance I want to be alone dealing with God knows what, got earbuds in my ears listening to whatever — and if you know me, you know my face certainly is a billboard, blasting all my emotions on a Full HD display — you recognize I am having a tough one and gently tap my shoulders to deliver a heart-warming message. In this case, are you my neighbour because of the kind words you shared with me? What if they were not sweet words, would you still have been a good neighbour then? Now, do you stop being my neighbour because of your poor situational awareness judgement and hence crossed the line? — Because what society these days has made us come to accept is that you can’t approach a stranger who has earbuds in both ears, especially in public — so that is surely crossing the line! Right?! Or are you not my neighbour because you did not let me be? It seems to me that this becomes dependent on which side you are — perspective. The thing about appreciating someone’s perspective is that you do not need all the details to do so, although knowing them would make it effortless. But we don’t. We don’t have such luxury! So, perhaps there may be such a thing as an objectively good neighbour.

Perhaps spatial awareness is the hand that opens the door tocare, or at least marks its beginning. Yet awareness alone is not enough. It draws upon other faculties: attention, perception, recognition and perspective. To begin expressing our humanity—that is, to become a neighbour, a good one for that matter—we must first learn to see. Not merely to see, but to recognise. Not merely to recognise, but to respond.

[1] Jill Seladi-Schulman, "What Is Spatial Awareness?", Healthline, April 21, 2020, https://www.healthline.com/health/spatial-awareness.

[2] Marcy Willard, "Spatial Awareness in Children", Marcy Willard PhD, October 24, 2024, https://marcywillardphd.com/spatial-awareness-in-childhood/.

[3] Willard, "Spatial Awareness in Childhood."

[4] Simone Weil writes that “the love of our neighbour… is made of this same substance [attention]”, and continues, “Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention. The capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle.” Simone Weil, Waiting for God, trans. Emma Craufurd (New York: Harper & Row, 1951), 114. 

[5] Simone Weil, Waiting for God.