Our first summer in the neighborhood blossomed with flights of fancy. They were usually triggered by sightings of places that looked interesting. We romanticized about places we had to try based on drive-by glimpses on the way to other places or from things I noticed during midday walks.

It was easy to love what we saw. We were enamored with the newness of things, the unique character of places; the way that, in our neighborhood, the train ran on street level and not overhead, or how the nexus of one-way streets kept Monty’s Philly Steak Sandwich shop a pleasure only true locals were likely to enjoy.

It’s easy to love something when it’s new. It doesn’t require any work. I didn’t realize it until this past week, but my second summer in this neighborhood, compared with the kind of high school crush that took over me during my first summer, was a perfect mirror, a perfect metaphor for my relationship with my partner.

John and I moved in to our two-flat in April of 2012. Our basement flooded during our first week, but we settled in. We put up window treatments and hung new address numerals by our front door.

Then we began to explore the neighborhood. We discovered that the Francisco Street train stop had a second entrance only a block from our back porch. On a walk, I discovered a beautiful house and garden with an incredible oak tree whose outstretched branches held 18 painted wooden birdhouses. We paid attention to the many small parks that would be perfect for walks should we decide to adopt a shelter pup.

But we only looked at things on the surface.

Almost every day, we would walk or drive past a community garden. It occupied a considerable stretch of land between a townhouse development and the riverside bike path.

Between our first summer here and our second summer, we could see that the garden project had been undergoing a lot of growth. Behind the wire fence, this year there seemed to be more wooden partitions identifying plots and many, many more people with plastic buckets and garden tools digging around the dirt.

But I never ventured a closer look – until now.

I walked past the opening in the wire gate and saw an old man in a worn suit calling out to his granddaughter or great-granddaughter. Judging from their coloring and features, I think they were from Guatemala. I think he was teaching her about farming. Maybe he was teaching her about life.

I began looking around a caged area where hose nozzles and small pieces of wire and fabric were kept (for labeling crops, I guessed). I searched for a phone number so I could get more information. Then I saw the sign: Garden Rules: 1. We grow edibles only….

While I read the rest of the rules, the young girl approached me. She acted as if I was in her garden (and I suppose it was hers as much as anyone’s). She wanted to see if she could answer any question the sign didn’t. “Linda runs the garden,” she told me. “I think it costs $10 to grow things here.”

After I left the garden, I came home and Googled The Peterson Garden Project. It was a not-for-profit interested in helping people learn how to grow their own food and community. The cost of membership turned out to be more than the $10 the girl from the Global Garden told me but well worth the price for the experience.

And I thought about my relationship with John and how some things seemed to be more complex, more challenging than during our first summer together. I thought about how The Rules were posted so clearly at the garden and at the Peterson Garden Project website.

You have to have rules and a commitment to play by the rules if you are to have a community, even if that is a community of two. You have to be willing to work on your garden, in your plot, if you want things to grow.

I was so happy I walked through the gate of the garden. I am happy I decided to look beyond my infatuations with the neighborhood; the plethora of kabob houses two blocks away and the great view of the river from the bridge on Wilson Avenue. I am grateful I made a second summer type of effort to actually look into something instead of content myself with a fantasy of its potential.

Answering a call from the universe, sent to you right where you live, is no small thing.