When I moved to New York at the age of 18, the city was the second home I had ever known …
I immediately felt mesmerized by the way I could get lost in a crowd, and the irony of feeling lonely is always but never. Each march promises to discover a new secret, even if you took the same path as the day before. After all, this was the place of countless books, movies, and articles, and it was where every moment felt the possibility, as even performing errands might make me feel like the hero of my life’s story.
It’s safe to say that this kind of romance is what kept me here. Because it certainly wasn’t the drug.
My apartment – there were a lot of it – had its quirks on its shuffles. For years, I lived in a building where a neighbor seemed to spend all his waking hours cooking bacon, and the smell always permeated the hall. Then the apartment came with Light farm sink That spews out only scorching hot water. Thick rubber gloves were a dishwashing necessity, hand washing not for the faint of heart.
there was Brooklyn Bedroom With radiators hissing and sprouting like an evil witch from a fairy tale. For weeks, I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking of someone breaking into. In the end, I got used to it to the point where it hardly scored.
Then, late one night, I heard a new, more annoying sound. Scraaaaaatch. Within the wall echoed, as if something was inspired by the story of Edgar Allan Poe. Scratched – scratched – scratched. A friend came to my apartment to confirm and the volume subsided. Then once I was alone – and it was easier to freak out about my intelligence – the scratching continued. Finally, when it looked like the creature might penetrate the drywall, someone came to take a look. It was a whole family of raccoons.
In one of the apartments in Manhattan, my upstairs neighbor worked as a waiter, as he climbed the stairs at 4 AM, as his presence instantly became known. Dinner has been prepared – or was it breakfast? – I watched TV, the sound faded as soon as I woke up from work. If it happened, that wasn’t the case for me, because my next place came with a neighbor downstairs who complained about every lesser noise than the sound of my breath. If he can live under the waiter, Think.
And this is just my experience. Friends who live in all the different places have tales of their own quirks – deer and rabbits eating their gardens, spooky sounds in the attic, neighborhood quarrels over landscapes or the color of holiday lights. When Dorothy said, “There is no place like home,” this was probably not what she had in mind. But these quirks, in some cases, make the home a home.
Although I don’t miss the scorching water basin, many of these idiosyncrasies only add to my living experiences. In the years I have been Lived aloneHearing the neighbour’s TV buzzing helped me feel less. I felt safer, because I knew that someone was witnessing my life in the same way that I witnessed the sound of their footsteps.
Over the past year, I’ve especially found that proximity to other humans feels comfortable, even when it’s happening through windows and walls. In a greater sense, we are all neighbors. Whether we know it or not, we’re all a bit quirky. So, what more can we expect?
Where do you live and what are the quirks in your home? Do you have any stories to share?
Note On his way home And the Stella apartment 175 sq. Ft.
(Photo of Caroline’s apartment via Instagram.)
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