The Art and Life Out My Window

Which is art and which is life? It all enriches me.

I live on a busy, loud, over-constructed thoroughfare in a major U.S. city. When I moved into my apartment twenty-six years ago, I envisioned a short-term rental while I found a more desirable home.

Bam, the dot com bubble hit, rents skyrocketed, and I knew, thanks to rent control, I’d never afford a cheaper place in this city. They’d be carrying me out of this place in a box.

Luckily, I picked an apartment with crown moldings, a bit of a view, tall trees I could see out my window, a central location, and an elevator up to my fourth-floor apartment.

When I realized, soon after I moved in, this would be my forever home, I decorated every nook and cranny to my taste, so my place is a stunner, modestly speaking, but people do go Wow, when they walk in. After all, in my eighty-years, I’ve acquired some nice things. I also have the eye of an interior decorator, which was a profession I considered at one time.

Despite the occasional loud, insensitive neighbors, the loss of some services in the building, the city cutting down the trees on our street, construction of high-rises that block my view, and tearing up the main street on which I live at a rate that rivals Boston’s dig, I could have picked a worse place to end up.

As I’ve aged in this building, I have had surgeries that made that elevator a blessing. Bus stops on all four corners in front of my door assures me of unlimited public transportation, and now, as a senior, my ride is free.

The noise? It teaches me tolerance. Some neighbors have become dear friends. My decorating job is dated but still pleases me. Life is nothing, if not a tradeoff.

But this morning, I also realized my apartment is teaching me another lesson about the value of art. And I’m not talking about the pages I’ve torn out of museum catalogs and framed for my walls.

I have my computer set up on a table in front of my window surrounded by family photographs and mementos of my travels. I often look up from my writing and inadvertently catch a scene from the street. This morning my front-row seat pulled me out of a mild funk due to a toothache, a sleep-deprived night, and a lack of ideas for an article. Despite my football team winning the playoffs yesterday, I’m a bit out of sorts, which is not typical for me.

But when I saw the building cater-corner to me, which is really an architect’s nightmare and a blight on my landscape as it blocks the view that once added to the charm of my apartment, I saw a man turning the corner.

Hunched into his dark, nondescript clothes against the wintery chill, he silhouetted himself against a large, black corner window that, in real life, looks onto a gym. Yet in a flash, the vignette became a Hockney painting. Think Nighthawks and other lonely scenes.

At that moment, the sun rose and splashed swirling rays of brilliant color on the huge top-floor, plate glass window of the penthouse, bringing William Turner’s other-worldly cosmos alive.

I pulled my head back to give the building a second look, and there I could see in the architecture, in all its three-dimensional glory, Mondrian at work in the designer’s mind, the artist’s blocks of color, his rectangles, and enormous black and white squares.

My memory drew me back to the hours I spent in museums staring at Mondrian’s paintings, marveling that he could make art out of geometry.

And while I was lost in my high-minded ruminations, a young hoodie-clad kid crossed against the light with his head down, focused on his phone just as a sporty red car whipped around the corner. With no oncoming traffic, the driver was able to zigzag across the yellow line to avoid hitting him. But only by inches.

My heart leaped into my throat at the close call, but hoodie guy barely looked up. The driver, however, stopped his car, got out, and in gestures worthy of Fight Club, motioned for the guy to come to his car.

Though I couldn’t hear the words, he was reaming the kid a new one for not watching the light. If you ask me, though, the driver was also at fault for not stopping at the red before turning the corner. Newsflash, I passed my driving test this year.

But that’s the way of human nature, isn’t it? Always looking for a scapegoat. Was hoodie guy stoned? Or in a Zen space, at peace with the moment they shared? No harm, no foul?

He turned back to his route, head down to his phone again, perhaps his way of giving the driver the finger. How long, I wondered, though, would it take the driver to get over his fury? Who else would suffer from his ire at this altercation?

Moments later, gray clouds filled the plate glass windows. Without the sheen of the sunrise, the building returned to the ugly hulk that blocks my view.

The street is empty now except for a young woman waiting at the light with her roll of purple yoga mat slung over her shoulder, a pink water bottle at her wrist, practicing consciousness and inner peace as she waits her turn to cross.

The light changes. Here comes an elderly homeless man dragging his belongings in a sack. Where has he come from? Where is he going? My writing is forgotten; I’m waiting for the next act.

If I had control of my world twenty-five years ago, I would have taken this apartment as a stop-gap and soon found a permanent home in a quiet neighborhood, likely far from public transportation.

We can always imagine the road less traveled, the what ifs in our lives. I’ve made my peace with the inconveniences of my noisy, metropolitan digs. I appreciate the benefits of a convenient bus and local shops I can walk to, my elevator that is kind to my rickety knees.

But this morning, I also realized I have a unique stage in my little one-bedroom, rent-controlled, well-below market apartment I can luckily still afford in this over-priced city. I can witness the clash of art and drama come to life.

I’m bracketed, as I sit at my computer, at my back by the books and art I have studied my whole life, searching for some knowledge and wisdom to guide my life. I face a wall of shelves with my collection of art books, which have helped me learn to love Mondrian, Turner, Hockney, and so many others.

I can pull down my beloved Iliad and Odyssey and read of arms and the man. Conflicts that brought down nations ignited by hot-headed men that mimic the ones I witnessed quarreling over the right-of-way on the street below me.

In front of me, of course, is the inspiration for the art, the colors, shapes, and human drama that fed the artists and writers, the confrontations that inspired conquerors and the oppressed, long ago and present time.

If I were an artist or a dramatist, I could justify sitting here all day to allow the passing scene to inspire me. But I’m just a little old lady, spying on my neighbors as they pass in front me, as they move on to their next spot in this swirling cosmos.