Beautiful happenings
Piercing fire alarm; I pulled on some pants, grabbed my keys and went down the 10 flights of stairs. Outside, the lights of police and fire engines illumined the night. Red silhouettes danced upon our apartment building. For the first time in the year I've lived here, I was able to see all of my neighbors at once. Clutching bundled babies or lap dogs, a handful with pizza boxes. In suits or ski jackets or pajamas. With laptops and purses and pillows. Funny, I didn't think to take anything with me at all. I guess when you're told to evacuate a place, you realize the transiency of everything you cling to. All along the 12 floors, people hung out of windows yelling to each other, people crowding around the fire men, everyone cursing together. Thank God it wasn't that cold of a night tonight. I looked up and smiled, just the sight of people gazing out of their kitchen windows, the rest of us on the ground, joking with one another, sharing. I absolutely love living in an apartment, you can't replace people. And then us in our entirety had to compact ourselves into the one elevator that works... all because 2E burnt their dinner...