neighbors in the walls

i love to eavesdrop <3

Hey, stranger.

On Saturday night I was late leaving my apartment to meet up with my girlfriends, my hair a curly mess from the humidity. Earlier I checked my phone and it said I had already walked over 8 miles and my legs certainly felt the strain of yet another 20,000 step day. Like every time I leave my apartment, though, I let myself enjoy the feeling of flipping my hair over a shoulder, prancing over the sidewalk puddles, my boots clacking along the pavement. I was wearing a chainmail top, white cut offs, my beige leather bag, the faint tan lines from laying on the docks just starting to peek through. I had just turned the corner to walk up 8th Ave when what sounded like a garbage truck barreling down the sidewalk emerged from the sky and it opened in what I could only describe as an absolutely torrential rain shower. I yelped and ducked inside an awning alongside 5 other people, our eyes lifted up to the grey clouds. Lightning slithered between buildings, ending with a crack that sent the hairs on my arm standing straight up. Within a few minutes, it was clear the rain was here to stay so with a quick text to my friend telling her I was seeking shelter, I ran the way I came, dodging the twice as big puddles and protecting my bag from the wet, heavy droplets of lukewarm rain. Ducking back inside the safety of my apartment, I heard the girl next door telling her roommate “you would hate it out there right now, I just got completely soaked.” Slipping into the bathroom to towel dry my now truly unruly tangle of soaking wet hair, I heard my upstairs neighbor tell his son, “come here and watch the lighting! See that?” The boy shrieked as another crack filled the air.

When the architect designed the building I live in currently, I have to think they were going for Feeling Like You Live Inside Four People’s Home At Once. I hear every footstep, every TV show, every argument and every poorly covered musical theater number performed by the girls on the 2nd floor. I’ve started an insane practice of joining in on the conversations I hear while peeing or brushing my teeth. There is a couple that definitely needs to break up somewhere in the building, because I can hear their arguments perfectly well from a certain spot crossing my living room. I’ll pause on the way to my room, taking a step back to hear him say, “well if you didn’t get home so late last night, this wouldn’t be a problem!” Uh oh, brother, I think, you’re in for it now.

A few days after I moved in, my roommate came up to me, “I hope you don’t feel like you need to be so quiet all of the time, by the way. I’m a heavy sleeper.”

“Oh, no, I’m not worried you’ll get mad! I’m always this quiet.” I reassured her, embarrassed that she thought I was tiptoeing around for weeks. But it’s true, my dad’s nickname for me has always been church mouse. Quiet to a fault, slinking around corners and back to my room.

It’s a funny thing, to hear people in their most mundane moments. I’ve started noticing it everywhere I go, forgoing my headphones to listen to passing conversations on the street. The thing that gets me, that makes me really soft and mushy towards everyone, is that we all talk about the same things. Someone at work is being an asshole, a friend has a new boyfriend that sucks, family members driving people crazy, a friend is in the hospital, someone in our lives has changed and we’re struggling with it. It’s so human in its predictability. How many times have my friends and I sang the Les Mis soundtrack off key, unknowingly, as we lay around someone’s bedroom? The girls downstairs make me want to bang my head against the wall with their rendition of Defying Gravity but I can’t say I’m not guilty of it. The man who belches every morning while I’m brushing my teeth makes me gag, but I can’t fault him for his lack of decorum in his own space. So human, all of us.

There is a certain lack of curiosity I am guilty of, sometimes. I’ll be out at a bar and someone will be talking to me and I’ll catch my eyes drifting to people watch, or to check the bathroom line, my focus leaving the conversation entirely. I’ll blink and refocus and feel slightly bad about it, but mostly just bored. At the gallery openings I force myself to go to, I stare at paintings so lovingly made, annoyed when the meaning is lost on me. I forget that there is always a story. All of my inquisitiveness has been directed inwards: what do I want to do today? What sounds fun? What didn’t I like about that? Who do I want to surround myself? What type of person do I want to be? I selfishly, stupidly, forget that turning those questions to the people around me will often lead to a fondness for them I didn’t anticipate. I can’t help but love people a little more when I know them better.

I saw what I assume was the couple who’s relationship I’ve been praying on the demise of on the street after the rain stopped pelting the windows. My hair was drier and wrangled into a presentable state, and I started at the sight of them. I realized I had seen them on the street multiple times, my gaze always drifting past without a second thought. How many people do I pass every day with stories and lives that are so rich, so full of nuance and passion and angst and happiness? The conversations I catch that sound exactly like ones my friends and I have are heart aching in their familiarity. Listening to the various conversations in the walls of my building is a good reminder to be curious about people, to not let myself make the mistake in assuming no one can surprise me. Maybe I’ve met a neighbor and never knew it because I didn’t ask the right questions. What would it be like if I approached every single person with the intent to know more, to look closer? God, it sounds exhausting but I think I’d end up loving people a lot more. I’d be less judgmental or harsh, more inclined to forgive them when after all, they’re just like me in so many ways. All of us, human.

xoxo,

Evie