Last night, I was woken up at 2 a.m. by the sound of a screaming banshee—I mean baby.
The baby sleeps on the other side of my bedroom wall, in the apartment next to mine. Most nights, I don’t hear a peep from the tiny human over there, but I did recently move my bed to the opposite side of the room so I couldn’t hear the everyday squealings and whimperings. When the baby gets really riled up about something, however, that apartment wall might as well be a beaded curtain for all the sound it blocks.
It’s not just the walls in the apartment that are thin as curtains. The ceiling, too, I swear, is conversely sound-proof. I can hear the couple upstairs trudging from one side of the kitchen to the other, clanking metal pots and dropping silverware on the floor. I can hear furniture creaking or scraping across the floor, and, if I cared to, I could probably count the number of times they got out of bed for a glass of water in the middle of night.
I can hear their little terrier skitter across the floor or jump off the couch with an adorable thud.
If I meander down the hall on a Friday night, I can hear two twenty-something roommates throwing a party. I’m always impressed by how they can fit so many laughing voices into such a tiny apartment. Right across from my door, I can hear another couple blaring true-crime TV. And, if I’m lucky enough to be outside on a weekend evening, I can hear a piano player from the top floor, his jaunty version of Beethoven floating out an open window.
It’s just the noises of people going about their days and nights. What am I supposed to do, ask my neighbors to pipe down just so I can avoid the inconvenience of listening to other humans living their lives? They’d probably have a few things to say to me. I broadcast Taylor Swift 24/7 and set off the smoke alarm when I cook.
We like to think we can live in our own bubbles and never bump into each other. We very much enjoy our personal space, so we can make our everyday noises in peace and not think about the ways our lives affect other lives. When you reside in an apartment complex, however, you can’t even pretend that’s possible.
So God bless you, piano-playing neighbor. God bless you, couples who drop forks and watch true crime. God bless you, little terrier. And God bless you, tiny screaming human on the other side of the wall.
Hannah Riffell has landed in Lansing, Michigan twenty-three years after she was born there, nineteen years after she moved to Mississippi, seven years after she moved to Northern Michigan, and two years after she graduated from a university in Grand Rapids. You probably can’t find her because she’s either exploring the state, wandering around her city, or just lost in her own head.
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Neighbor noise is an oddity for me, having lived in houses most of my life, and my current apartment is soundproof enough that I forgot my neighbors can probably hear me blasting vocaloid music. I appreciate this reminder—that we are not as closed off as things seem and how that is actually a blessing