It’s been a learning experience navigating how to live in a new space. My apartment seems to have a personality of its own.
It’s quite the enigma, even beyond its strange locks and the keys that I embarrassingly still struggle to use. There’s something slightly startling at every turn: the loud roar of the front door as it slams shut, the mail always addressed to tenants past, the big metallic (and non-functional) keyholes in several of its doors…
Some of its doors even creak open on their own, despite my attempts to ensure they’re closed. But, I like the doors and what they lead to. Especially my hall closet, which I privately think of as a fraternal triplet of sorts because of its placement to the right of two other similar hall closets.
One of the qualities that I most enjoy is how populated with windows my apartment is. In my bedroom, I can put a screen in my window that allows me to feel the Berkeley breeze on my skin. More importantly, though, I can watch as squirrels crawl and leap across metal roofs. I can hear birds chirping in the branches of nearby trees, and I can admire them as they soar through blue skies.
Even with my powerful lamps and colorful LED lights, it’s the window that brings the most light and life to the room. Sun pouring in, darkness pouring out.
Speaking of life, my roommates and I are far from the only living creatures in our apartment. There’s been an assortment of spiders (mostly daddy longlegs-looking fellows), as well as a moth that had a strange attachment to me despite the variety of well-lit locations to settle in.
I’ve even dubbed one of my paper plates the “designated spider plate” to transport the trapped arachnids outside via my window. The rationale for this is twofold: my roommates are evidently not fans of spiders (or, at least have a much more averse reaction than me) and I believe that a life lived outside in the vibrant color of nature has to be more satisfying than whatever happens within these walls.
But, back to my apartment. It provides a place of rest, a healthy mix of solitude and community, as well as endless wonder. It keeps me close to my roommates, who I most often stumble upon mid-task in the kitchen. We somehow have conversations even more unhinged than our wild-spirited doors.
There’s something very beautiful about our patchwork life. About the fleetingness of this unsettled moment, coexisting simultaneously with the idea that this stage in our lives will continue indefinitely. I hope my apartment might grow accustomed to my eccentricity just as I have grown to appreciate its own.