There are men (and one woman) who have been climbing up and down my windows for a couple weeks now. They create scaffolding out of nothing and pull items up and down with chutes, ropes, buckets, and manpower. My landlady says they are redoing the roof, power washing the walls and painting them an off-white.
The first day of this and I feel on edge, not used to the lack of privacy. I want to pull open the curtains as soon as I get out of bed but now there are men outside my window. Naturally my cats are elated at the activity, tails flicking and bodies alert with curiosity. One of the men sticks his gloved fingers very slightly through the crack in the window to play pounce with Wanda, trailing her eyes back and forth. “Gato” I hear him say to his friends happily as the one woman sings a Spanish song.
It’s intimate to know people in this way. They watch me walk around in my underwear and a large shirt, I watch them walk across the plank wood carrying always different tools. I wonder what they think of me - a woman who stays in bed for half the day sometimes without opening the curtains, with mussed hair and a sleepy gaze, sometimes cleaning and dancing, rotating between the many seating options, sometimes in front of a monitor with a sharp gaze, eyebrows furrowed.
I wonder if I can offer the men water through my window or share a smile, but they often look away when we make eye contact. I feel comforted by this attempted respect for my privacy.
I wonder if they’ve named my cats, if they talk amongst themselves about all the lives unfolding in the units facing them like large flatscreen TVs. Units one, four, and seven. The single woman downstairs who often stares out the window with a blank expression, the two sets of couples on floors two and three respectively.
I’m the couple on floor two and the couple upstairs is from Chile. I know this because I bumped into the man in the stairwell and when I told him I spent my 25th birthday in Santiago, his face lit up with the love of a hometown. He plays guitar at 10pm and sings, very very well. Sometimes I hear their furniture dragging overhead and imagine what their layout might be. The men outside our windows don’t need to imagine - they know all our layouts.
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I wake up this morning to someone gently closing the bedroom window from the outside. Initially spooked (and a bit violated by having a piece of my home meddled with from the outside-in), I suddenly remember the email I received a couple days before:
“The painters will begin Monday, 9/22 with power washing. Please close your windows. A little water can still get through (move items that could be damaged away from the windows).”
It’s one of the painters, closing our window for us as silently as possible. What a beautiful piece of kindness. I know the silence will feel wrong when they leave, now that I’m used to the ruckus. I crave the return of my privacy but have grown to love the warmth of their existence in my daily orbit.
This sharing of quiet life has been top of mind for me recently - the intimate details of living with someone or watching them live, moments you wouldn’t see otherwise. How does someone look like right out of the shower, hair wet? Who do they become when their shoulders relax in solitude, curl up and watch TV and maybe fall asleep? How does it feel to be connected to them through just eyes and ears? There is so much care and love through mutual existence. During times like this, everyone just wants to be seen and held.
I am so grateful for those who have shared my existence lately - whether the burden of an 18 hour drive, or the burden of a humid city after dark, or the burden of a warm stomach against your back, or the burden of passing a day on opposites sides of a window - me lounging, you painting.
We all need to be watered the same way, so why is America leaving you out to dry?
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some thoughts as I hear about news like this