All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.  ~Anatole France

 

Early on this year, I moved into my new home. Just another apartment in a long line of apartment complexes, with one notable difference – near total silence. An unnerving quiet sat heavily over the new development. Most of the buildings were empty and in a state of wary anticipation. The fresh outdoor paint glistened wet and shiny. The pale-grey pavement celebrated each day, yet to be soiled by the stains of leaky car fuel and peeled tire rubber. It was eerie and blissful. Each night I would walk onto my patio and breathe in deeply, listening to nothing specific. Cars in the distance thrummed away, softly and quietly on their way to Any Other Place. The few inhabitants in my complex were, for the most part, home already.

Tonight, I am thinking back on those days with longing. Just yesterday, I was startled out of my apartment by the terrified and hopeless screams of a small child. I searched upstairs and below, looking in confusion for the source of the screams I had initially ignored. After a ten minutes of fruitless searching, I reluctantly returned to the warmth of my apartment. The child still screamed, but the cries had diminished in volume and the echoes made it impossible to locate the source. The only thing I’d determined was that it definitely came from an apartment near to or within my building. I stepped out on my patio again to see if I could hear more, something to help make my decision, only to discover that it had been made for me. No less than three police vehicles, one ambulance and one firetruck sat directly below me. Lights flashing urgently but not a peep of a siren, the men stood outside their vehicles, whispering furiously into their walkies. I shouted down at them, “Is this about the kid I heard crying a minute ago??” They answered “Yes. But everything is fine now, ma’am.”

Skeptical, as I always am when faced with certain authority figures, I stuck around long enough to ensure that everything was indeed “fine”. Knowing I would never receive an answer, I didn’t bother asking what happened. I only hoped against hoped that the faceless child I worried about wasn’t soon to be carted away in that curiously inactive ambulance. I received no answers. I am left still wondering.

Tonight is an altogether different matter. For the last few hours, the sounds of heavy boots and low voices have been lumbering up and down the stairs outside my door. Above me, I hear the thud and drag of heavy objects being tossed or pulled about in seemingly no pattern whatsoever. Not wishing to be THAT neighbor, I’ve coolly kept my thoughts and irrational desires to slam objects against my ceiling to myself. I’ve seen no moving truck. No dinosaur-sized pieces of random furniture. Surely, they aren’t moving dressers weighing several metric tons. So what on EARTH could be making all that noise?? And at this time of night?

I realize in this single moment, I am no longer the carefree, stay-out-all-hours 21 year old I once was. I am now 27 going on 50. I am that crazy old lady in the neighborhood, the one you only see disappearing behind lace curtains.

In the end though, I think I prefer this inane noise over the glassy silence. It is the sound of life, the sound of things happening. It’s comforting to know that two doors down, a couple that argued vigorously last night has clearly made up. And that despite yesterday’s anguished cries of one little baby, peace has surely returned to Apartment 3B.

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