Neighbors
I was born in the middle of a city, with a whole family packed in a very small 3 bedroom apartment, and people living upstairs and downstairs from us. I have never lived in the suburbs, except for a short bout (6 months) in the outer Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco, which is officially in the city but feels like the suburbs. I was a very social student at the time and did not like that place very much. I love walking around cities, the activity, people watching, the cinemas and the libraries, the restaurants and the caf�s, but when I come home, I wish I could forget about it all and shut the noise out. But the city won’t let me, and neither will the neighbors.
Maybe I’m just getting old. It doesn’t help that summer has started and that we have opened the windows. There is always somebody driving by with music thumping, a neighbor doing repairs for months at a time. And the babies… B. thought that he had found the perfect little oasis in the middle of the city, a second floor condo full of cachet, with quiet adults as neighbors. But then a very young couple moved upstairs with their baby. The parents do not understand how old the floor is, walk around with shoes and shake the place with thunder-like noises, drag furniture around at 6am, and their toddler is now a young walking elephant. Talking to them changes nothing. They nod, say they’ll be more careful, and nothing changes. Some people don’t understand what living in a city means. They don’t know about respect, personal space, the idea that we are all in this together and that we can’t just forget about each other.
Then one day when we were sitting on his back balcony, B. discretely pointed to the balcony next door, and told me to look at the skinny neighbor. When the skinny neighbor turned around, I saw she had a huge belly sticking out, one of those bellies that come out of nowhere. One day the belly disappeared. Now through his bedroom wall, B. can hear the cries of the newborn at all hours of the night. I wouldn’t be surprised if my breasts started lactating as a reflex, since that cry feels so close to us. Yes, earplugs. I know. I use them. They work well with low, rumbling sounds. They will cut out the sounds made by that kid when he’s a teenager and his voice changes.
And that’s not the end of it. B.’s downstairs neighbors, who often go away for weeks at a time, have rented their condo to a woman with a very, very loud three year-old who likes to bang doors at 5h30 am while his mother smokes on the terrace and yells at him, waking up everybody who left their windows open.
So there. We didn’t want to have kids, but in a few weeks, the city gave us three. My place is better, but the walls are very thin, and you always run the risk that a lovely quiet neighbor will move out and a loud « I’m alone in this world » personality will move in.
I am told that it’s not much better in the suburbs. That lawn mowers and chain saws get active early in the morning. So how does one get a bit of piece and quiet? A recently renovated concrete building with a huge mortgage for the next 50 years? A move to the back woods, far away from the pleasures of urban life? Or, as B. suggested, a move to a retirement complex?
Can one love the city very much and not love people as much?
