Pigeon Holes

Oftentimes, living in New York City feels like this, roughly a pigeon house.

To say that New York City apartments are small is an overstated understatement. My own apartment is my little pigeon hole. Regardless, it has been home for so long that I cannot imagine being anywhere else. It is the antithesis of how I have lived since childhood. My parent’s house is so big that whenever relatives or very close friends from abroad came home they often roomed and boarded with us.

There are four units per floor in my building and it is five stories high. Most of the occupants are either single or couples. I think. I hardly see anyone of them anyway. They are young with the mean age probably being in the mid-30s and I know most by face except for a few with whom I may have exchanged some pleasantries once in a while.

The guy who lives on the ground floor is a serial dater and I know that he loves to cook for his lady loves and that he owns a motorcycle. He has posted several times on the common bulletin board an appeal to those living upstairs not to throw their cigarette butts onto his garden. I am assuming he is obsessive neurotic. He seems quite nice though so I wonder why he has never settled down. Oh yes, this is New York. No one settles.

Next door to me is a Japanese girl who has very heavy footsteps despite her diminutive size. On my first year in the apartment, my boyfriend surprised me with my first fresh Christmas tree – the fresh fir smell, bright ornaments, blinking lights and shedding needles included. It was a thoughtful gift but when I was leaving for my yearly holiday home, I knocked on her door and asked her is she was interested to take over ownership. She was joyful and together we dragged the whole tree to her apartment. It became all hers to enjoy, and then eventually to clear the post-holiday carcass and all the way down two flights of steps.

I know she had a boyfriend for a while and often spent night with him in his apartment. She’d come home, walk around the apartment a lot in her heels and then leave around 10PM. Lately, I’ve noticed she has been staying in and would even leave in the morning about the same time I am. I guess they’ve split up.

A few months ago my boyfriend got to know the lady who lives upstairs from me. She had let him into the building when he still did not have a key to my apartment and realizing he would need to wait for me outside on the corridor (he assumed I was out with friends), offered him access to the fire escape stairs from her window. When I saw her in the laundry area in the basement a few days ago, she asked me about him and casually mentioned that she hardly sees him in the building anymore (eh, he has his own flat). The protocol on how to deal with nosy neighbors is diplomacy; usually because you never know when you might need them eventually. On knowing this, my man's ego is of course feeling 9 feet tall. I have made sure he has keys though.

Across the hall every morning I’d hear the woman talking on the phone in Hebrew so I know she is Jewish. Next door to her is a Latino man who has just moved in, very quiet who came with just a suitcase and is just slowly furnishing. Upstairs in one of the apartments is another bachelor – tall and dapper. The rest are just faces.

I think it is plain luck that with such a tight living condition, my neighbors are people who are respectful and courteous. We are a peaceful bunch and whoever tries to change that eventually move out sooner than later. It is a nice place to hang your hat at the end of the day. Albeit a small one. But no, these characters that share the same address as I (except for the door number) are not my family. We are just land here to peck and nap.