The neighbor 3 blocks away

The Sillies

 &

 Beverly George

    Approaching the brick two-story house on Sundance Lane built just three blocks from my own home in this vanishing North Texas prairie, I see an odd little lady perched on a bench outside the front door. She wears a turquoise house dress. Way too much blue eye shadow. And her "oh" shaped mouth is painted a deep red as she peers out at the neighborhood over a newsletter with the printed words "Corona Virus".

Silly Nosy Rhona spys on

 her neighbors over the 

Covid News.

    My daughter once lived in this same house. My third grandchild was born in this house. I like to walk past it remembering all the happy times we had here. The cheerful laughter, the happy birthday parties, the touch of those tiny little hands and hiding Easter eggs under that frail little tree... which I now see has been trimmed into a thriving shrub. Also in this too-long-neglected front yard someone has planted a splashy group of gladiolus. 

    Once again this lovely house has become a home. And the occupant turns out to be Beverly George, wife to Henson, mother of three, clay artist and published author. 

    George was born and reared in New York, but moved to Fort Worth in July 2018 from Southern California to be near her parents. The lady on the bench moved with them. George sculpted her from clay. She's modeled after Gladys Kravitz, the nosy neighbor in the 60's sitcom Bewitched. 

This odd lady's name is Silly Nosy Rhona and when she's not peering over her newsletter to spy on the neighbors on Sundance Lane, Silly Nosy Rhona can be found peering from the window sill of a multi-level New York-style apartment building she shares with a number of other apartment dwellers.

The Sillies, often referred to as The Silly Life, learn to accept each other's 

differences during the Covid pandemic.

    The apartment house and its occupants, dubbed The Sillies and sometimes The Silly Life, is rooted in George's living room. These neighbors don't choose to live next to each other. They come from different backgrounds, religions and cultures. They have absolutely nothing in common except that they live in the same apartment house. And the same government lockdown has forced them to find comfort in each other. Cut off from their normal lives  The Sillies are forced together to develop relationships that never would have moved forward before the pandemic. From their widows The Sillies maintain social distance while learning each other's faces, habits, hobbies, likes and dislikes. Each face has become so familiar that if a day passes and a face isn't seen at the window the others worry: Is their neighbor sick? In need of help? Perhaps dying in the apartment right next door? 

    One such apartment neighbor - a stereotypical New York Italian guy who goes by the name,  Italian Guy, can often be seen sitting shirtless and alone in George's front yard with a beer in one hand, smoking a big cigar and reflecting on life.

Italian Guy sits alone on 

the porch reflecting on life.

    George speculates that to some viewers, The Sillies might be considered a dirge. It tells a Covid 19 story shared by many. "That 2020 is the year the earth stood still," George said. "All the things we normally find comfort in are now on pause." 

    But these silly people are also about "hope."  

"They tell the story of how Covid 19 became the great equalizer," George explained.  "It's a story about how things that isolate us, like cultural separations, no longer matter."

🕂

Sarah's Silence

a novel by Beverly George

"Sarah's Silence" is available
 at Amazon.com.

         George's first published novel "Sarah's Silence," tells a gripping and dramatic story of Sarah, a teenage girl who loses her heroine addicted mother, the only person who cares about her, then comes to live with her affluent and successful aunt and uncle. 

    Like George's sculpture The Sillies, Sarah and her mother's sister are forced to develop relationships that would never have been if circumstances had not thrown them together. In a society that celebrates wealth and power, the voice of a lone teenage girl barely resonates until a tragic accident forces Sarah out of her silence.

    "Sarah's Silence"  contains sexual content, violence and adult choices. 

    George who was inspired to write "Sarah's Silence" after speaking to a group of teens at church said she was, "Horrified to see what they were going through.” 

    The first chapter of "Sarah's Silence" has been translated into a short film, which won an audience choice award on a online circuit as well as second place in content.

🕂

"Sarah's Silence," copyrighted 2014, published by Skeggox Inc. is available on Amazon.com for Kindle and in paperback.

Sculptor and author Beverly George lives in

Fort Worth where she continues to create

in clay and print.

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