Noakowskiego

silent and calm mornings aren’t available to me in my cement world with a family of neighbours I don’t know but whose habits I learned through sounds carried by air.

there is a young woman who never turns off her alarm — she probably sleeps in plugs in her ears. Her windows are wide open so that all of us could hear that she was planning on getting up at 6.

on the last floor the light stays on till very late and very early in the morning. I don’t know when they sleep, but I can see when they smoke cigarettes squatting on the balcony behind the drying laundry.

someone comes back at dawn from a night shift and a baby downstairs cries for milk soon after. the doves gurgle and flap their wings. another person watches TV very loudly. breakfasts are being made and dishes washed.

and I always leave my windows open too. by now, familiarity won with frustration.

and I always wonder what sounds am I marked by — what sounds do I bring onto the altar of the members of my building — where we offer ourselves just as we are, not to the gods but to the community of individuals, an orchestra of needs and habits conducted by proximity.