Open Shades
Oct. 29th, 2020 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pen_gruntWhen I was small, I remember riding home from my grandparent's house after dark. In winter, when the sun set early, people wouldn't close their shades right away. I would peer out the window in the dark at the little illuminated boxes; catching bits of vignettes of other lives. People eating dinner. Watching TV. Rows of pictures meticulously arranged behind a couch. Kids in jammies playing on the floor. Someone doing the dishes.
In my grandparents' neighborhood, there were mid-century-mod houses; a first-ring urban expansion of the suburbs. The new-now-next neighborhood in the 40s and 50s that signaled prosperity. Catching glimpses of those lives--that sort of americana perfection that only holds up in a fleeting glance from a rolling car--was a kind of magic.
And it was something I didn't get where I grew up. Who could see their neighbors? Not us. It was fascinating. So many lives being lived, entire, so close together and so separate. So many complete stories happening--more than I could ever imagine.
My treadmill broke.
Lots of things have broken in 2020. The dishwasher, the refrigerator, the TV, my phone, the coffee maker, kitchen faucet, my laptop, my spirit. And now this. So I've started to go for walks around the neighborhood. I walk a half hour out and a half hour back--meandering along any route that looks interesting.
There's that same sort of quasi-magic. It's chilly. I walk with a book in my ears, peering up at old, old houses. Victorians and post-WWI models, some mid-century thrown in. None of the houses here are very new. Some are grand and odd, with eaves that block windows that shouldn't be there. I look for the ones who haven't pulled the shades yet and see little bits of lives.
But there is another dimension, this time. Because as I walk--unencumbered by the box of a vehicle--I can smell everything as well. I'm not speeding by, I can linger. Supper is cooking. There is a dog in the yard. Steam pours forth in rolling clouds into the cool night smelling of detergent and dryer sheets.
I could walk all night and forever. But I have to get home to put the kids to bed, and it is getting colder, besides. And more people are pulling the shades into the coming night, shuttering their little shadowbox lives.
In my grandparents' neighborhood, there were mid-century-mod houses; a first-ring urban expansion of the suburbs. The new-now-next neighborhood in the 40s and 50s that signaled prosperity. Catching glimpses of those lives--that sort of americana perfection that only holds up in a fleeting glance from a rolling car--was a kind of magic.
And it was something I didn't get where I grew up. Who could see their neighbors? Not us. It was fascinating. So many lives being lived, entire, so close together and so separate. So many complete stories happening--more than I could ever imagine.
My treadmill broke.
Lots of things have broken in 2020. The dishwasher, the refrigerator, the TV, my phone, the coffee maker, kitchen faucet, my laptop, my spirit. And now this. So I've started to go for walks around the neighborhood. I walk a half hour out and a half hour back--meandering along any route that looks interesting.
There's that same sort of quasi-magic. It's chilly. I walk with a book in my ears, peering up at old, old houses. Victorians and post-WWI models, some mid-century thrown in. None of the houses here are very new. Some are grand and odd, with eaves that block windows that shouldn't be there. I look for the ones who haven't pulled the shades yet and see little bits of lives.
But there is another dimension, this time. Because as I walk--unencumbered by the box of a vehicle--I can smell everything as well. I'm not speeding by, I can linger. Supper is cooking. There is a dog in the yard. Steam pours forth in rolling clouds into the cool night smelling of detergent and dryer sheets.
I could walk all night and forever. But I have to get home to put the kids to bed, and it is getting colder, besides. And more people are pulling the shades into the coming night, shuttering their little shadowbox lives.
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no subject
Date: 2020-10-30 03:43 am (UTC)I love walking with a book in my ears but I usually don't get to peek in the window because I mostly go during the day. Peeking through open windows is certainly fun.