Almost every morning, while drinking coffee, I see a woman hanging clothes, folding shirts, airing tablecloths or shaking rugs on the opposite balcony. She almost always has a tired face and usually wears a worn-out T-shirt and her hair is tied up. I don’t know what his house is like inside or who he lives with. I only have a diary of her life. Maybe it will be happy and familiar. Or not. I don’t know if she goes to a very well-groomed, satisfying job after chores, or if this chore is just the beginning of a hard, monotonous day in the service of the rest of the family. I imagine that after spending time on the balcony, you reward yourself with a nice peace, tea and some toast, even if you had your breakfast very early.
Sometimes I think you see me. Maybe he thinks my life is drinking early coffee in a blue mug and looking out the window. Maybe he’s even imagining what I’ll be doing for the rest of the day. I’ve never met her on the street, but I don’t know if I would recognize her in another outfit and with her hair down. The distance from which I observe him, where the sun sometimes dazzles slightly, is enough to make his face look a little blurry to me. So maybe our paths crossed.
Scenes such as hanging dresses, folding shirts, airing tablecloths, shaking rugs are repeated day after day and life goes by. One night, I look out the window where I drink coffee in the morning and look at her blog. There are usually lights on almost all floors and yours too. Children are seen from time to time throughout the day on the balcony above where I observe. In the picture below, a couple sometimes goes outside to smoke, perhaps to avoid disturbing their grandparents or their children who live with them. Watch it blow smoke into the clouds in the afternoon. I don’t know what they’ll see on the balcony just below mine.
I’m looking forward to the weekend to see if it will come out, too, although it may already have confirmed that I don’t drink coffee in my blue mug next to my favorite window on Saturdays and Sundays. Sometimes we think we know a person, but we only see them in a very specific area. and also a waiter we trust, for example. But we do not know what it was like at other times outside its own territory. Or ours. Unfinished frames of a life. Hence partial decisions. It is also possible that the woman I observed does not live there and is a domestic worker. Without ignoring that this diagnosis is my bias. What is certain is that it will dawn again tomorrow. Maybe I can switch to a white cup.