I have a downstairs neighbor. Her name is Chris and she is a native Vermonter who recently attended law school in Boston only to return to Burlington, as all good native Vermonters do. She has a job at a respectable law firm a few blocks from our house. She drives a well cared for SUV. I assume she has the oil changed regularly. From what I've seen of her apartment, she shops at Pottery Barn except for the few personalized items from her childhood she has carefully placed about the living room to give it "character". She rides her bicycle seriously, or at least seriously enough to have bike shorts, a helmet, and a strap on water bottle. Her bike is neither blue, nor Polish, nor does it sport the words "The Bluebird Express" across the frame. This fascinates me.
As far as I can tell, when Chris walks into Pottery Barn, her first instinct is to purchase items, not study them so that they can be reproduced in brighter colors later on. When her pepper mill breaks, her first thought is most likely not "I hope I can find a new one in the shape of a person". She has dinner dates with men who wear flannel shirts and drive subarus with ski racks. They do not huddle on a couch watching the second season of Connections over a plate of vegan nachos. She also does not, I imagine, own any clothing she has hand sewed. In her free time, she does not obsessively photograph her kitchen. She did not buy an orchid so that she could cast one of the blossoms in resin to wear as a pendant. Her umbrella is not striped, nor painted, nor large. It is black and it fits in her purse. She does not wear polka dot shoes. She also most likely does not have pets with people names and she doesn't have a turtle she's had since she was six that is named after someone of the wrong sex. She is, in other words, a complete enigma to me.
It is an odd sensation to be faced with someone who makes entirely different decisions for no other reason than personal taste. Her life looks just as bewildering to me as mine must look to her and so we part ways - one upstairs, one downstairs, both left scratching their heads in puzzlement.
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3 comments:
Great stuff in here lately. I almost hesitate to comment, not wanting to interrupt the stream. You write so well.
She's me, less one lime green mid-size umbrella and one well-cared for SUV!
No, she's definitely not you. You indulged my love of moldaramas, you helped me place them in museum exhibits and photograph them. You are odder than you give yourself credit for. You're my sister - how could you not be?
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