Night Lives and Past Times - Welcome to the Neighborhood

In my bedroom, I have a large window that spans most of the far wall. I've started to use natural light from this window to wake me up in the mornings instead of an alarm clock (let’s face it, I’ve got nowhere to go), and I find myself staring at the open expanse of sky and the rosy blush of every new morning fading to a tentative blue. It’s funny because from my bed, that’s all that I can see, but if I lift myself up and sit by the windowsill, I see the rooftops of the houses that line my street, the mess of laundry lines and patches of garden separated by fences and walls.

You can tell a lot about your neighbors by the state of their fence, and recently I've noticed that it’s almost bizarre how so many people who either take their gardening very seriously or simply don’t care at all congregate to live all in the same place. It’s an alarming puzzle, a maze of houses and faces all separated by barriers but still merged in conflict, and I find it almost funny that lock-down has not necessarily changed or altered these subtle differences in character to favor something that instead speaks of unity and strength.

Sure, every Thursday evening we hear the whistles and cheers for the NHS and the banging of pots and pans, but then people retreat, withdraw back into the safety of their homes and the smallness of their lives. The joining in of clapping, the waves to Mrs what’s her face with her menagerie of cats two doors down, is done almost solely to remind themselves that they are still alive, inconspicuously conspicuous and waiting patiently for the day when they can reoccupy themselves with listlessness and more waiting. I understand how bleak the picture that I’m painting is here. My apologies.

Isn’t that the truth, though? Looking out my window and fabricating these lives for people I barely know seems to preoccupy me when instead I forget that everyone has some sense of meaning in their lives, something to look forward to. Everyday I go on a run, I keep to myself and I obey the lock-down guidelines, all without looking upwards and acknowledging the people I see out and about, as if somehow the solitary nature of this situation isn’t somehow universal. What are their dreams, their hopes? The father cycling with his daughter down the road, keeping to the side and almost clipping the grassy verge to avoid traffic, barking instructions and perspiring in the unforgiving sun. Does he feel immense gratitude to the teachers that would ordinarily be occupying his daughter’s mind in a way that he didn’t feel gratitude before? Does he miss going to work each day and chortling nonsense and inside jokes with his co-workers? Maybe his life has been impacted very little. A stay at home dad, who lives for these moments with his children. His barking of orders is his zen-mode, his extra scoop of ice cream. This is the very essence of his life, and I walk on the other side of the street pondering whether he will have to adjust more or less than me when this is all over, when this is done.

If I had to imagine a better day for myself, I would have to cherry pick all of the moments that I have loved in recent years, the moments I now cherish as fond memories. The exchanging of conversations between me and my friends, the trips to the beach, the hidden meaning behind a snort of laughter tossed around in the vicinity of other ordinary people who would never get the joke and so kept on walking. My friends have been like a beacon to me in this crisis, every call and message bringing more hope, more arranging and rearranging of plans, anticipation that I don’t even have enough room for what with all the worry but I feed on it greedily, yearning for something that can occupy my thoughts and give me some excitement for the future.

One good day. A day where I would hop onto the bus and not care that there was chewing gum stuck to the bottom of my seat or that the driver almost missed my stop. Just the very notion of getting the bus, of needing somewhere to get to, to be on time and to be expected, it brings me a sense of indescribable joy. In a rural small town where the bus system is notoriously unreliable, I simply wouldn’t care, and it would even be nice to sit next to a perfect stranger and say hi with the awkwardness of unintimate greetings. When getting the bus, I would normally go into the city to meet my friends, meet them at the bus station and figure out where we were going to eat or if there’d be time for a movie. We didn’t have to plan because time didn’t really matter to us, it was forgotten under the wealth of possibilities, the amount we had to talk about that now meant something so immense but back then didn’t mean anything at all.

We were limitless, living at crowded restaurant tables and the cobblestone corners of every street, every marker of another potential adventure, a wander into the next open mic at some bar or a poetry reading near the city library. We became noctambulists, trudging drowsily as night descended upon us, outraged by the very idea of going home and giving in. We shouted back at the sky with something vaguely drunk and preposterous, intoxicated by the stars and the slowing down of all things as the traffic stuttered and the music from the clubs grew fainter, drifting into nothing.

My best friend lived in the city. Every time I visited her I wrestled with making it back home by the last bus, but almost inevitably I’d stay the night at hers and we’d talk until our mouths were dry and no longer hungry, ravenous for more words. I’d meet her studying at the library and if it was a Monday we’d walk to Brew dog, a bar that sold beer and on Mondays had a deal on their vegan burgers and fries. We’d sit eating sweet potato chips just outside the entrance, my friend shivering slightly under her jumper and watching as the light began to fade and the people began to change, no longer frantic shoppers or impatient workers but night owls in heels and hot pinks, and we’d wave or beckon to those who we knew and they’d join our table, steal a chip, have a chat before moving onward, rolling with the tide. It was peaceful, and wholesome somehow, a vast change to what I see now outside my window, the neighborhood quaking, unfurling as if it had something to say before retreating once more into silence, behind red doors and brass knockers.

Maybe it’s because I’m young that I see things that way. I long for something alive and breathing, something steady, and my better day would be just that unabashed and warm, not this strange perverseness of solidarity and togetherness whilst confined. I think that is the problem with being young now, we’ve been taught to always want more, to expect more. Were my experiences with my friends a fulfillment of some fantasy, an echo of the life I wanted that somehow wasn’t real, just fabricated? Every time I experienced that glow I was away from my family, away from my responsibilities, but no. The connections I felt with people were very real, very honest.

On my 18th birthday I yet again met my best friend in the city. We held hands and ignored the occasional looks of passers by as we swung our arms up and down, giggly and gangly, full of energy and coiled like a spring. She took me to this restaurant that hired prisoners,a rehabilitation project run by the city prison, and we ate lasagna as I opened her card and inhaled the heady scent of the candles, of the lemon and ginger tea. When she went up to pay her card was declined, and I ended up paying the majority as she squirmed with embarrassment. Later that incident became a joke, and became almost surreal as we raced up the incline of a hill just outside the restaurant, overlooking the city that wasn’t my home but felt almost like the breeding ground for every connection I had ever had with the other people in my life. She took out her camera and asked me to take photographs as she danced gleefully, her skirt twirling over the city lights, all chaos and order, purity and mischief. If I could recreate the happiness of that moment now almost two years later, I would. This time we’d share it with more friends, a wider circle, and I’d be glad that something so special and so just between us could be translated as something more to others, to something close to family.

The next day, if she was willing, we’d both travel back to our hometown by the lousy bus, listening to music and cackling as we sang quietly and misinterpreted the lyrics, halfheartedly trying not to draw attention to ourselves. I’d fix my bike, fill the basket with food, and we’d cycle to the beach and meet our friends from high school, drink cider and reminisce about growing up and scoff at all the growing up we still had to do. It would be better, good, better than this half-life, this illusion, and it would be better because I’d be surrounded by people I loved and I wouldn’t feel quite as lonely as I do now.

I feel ashamed of that loneliness, of that need, but more because it’s difficult to admit how much you rely on other people, and how rare it is to have good memories that don’t involve other human beings, other interactions. A good day is a precious thing, a gift, something to be shared with others, and right now we all wish we could have saved those up, kept them for days like these where we didn’t have to feel so much fear, so much terror. A better day would be everything I have described, every heartache and joke, every conversation about the world and our place in it, every whim and every poor mistake. I can’t let that almost idolization of better times allow me to abuse the time I do have right now. A better day can be today, if I let it. I can laugh with my family, sit in the garden and read, eat apples until my belly aches and all I can taste is a cloying sweetness. Play with my dog, video chat to my friends, write without compromising on my convictions,on my feelings.

We all deserve something better. We all deserve something warm, and if I could bestow that on my neighbors, the people who are always unknown but always recognizable and equipped with a ready hello or a smile, then I would. If I could give that to my friends in all the far flung places they reside, sequestered in their own fears and self-doubts, then I would give up my chance at a better day if it meant they could have hope. A better day is what you make of it, and mine will certainly be spent reliving memories and making new ones. Tomorrow might not be that day, the day after still not even close, but they can improve, not feel such a chore to live through, not such another move in a long waiting game, an error of the dice. They can be a promise of better, and better does not have to seem quite so impossible, so non-existent.

Here is a playlist of songs I have listened to on Spotify as I’ve traveled to meet my friends by bus, if you want to give any of them a listen. I’ve always found myself humming along to them and then feeling guilty for other passengers and people, but also curious to know what they themselves might be listening to, how they might be feeling. Enjoy!