A face appeared in the top segment of the bathroom window of my apartment. He balanced a protective helmet atop his head, wore overall style work clothes and a plaid shirt and held a mean paint scraper in his right hand. It is summer and we are off the road from our 10 month adventure via motorhome. This marks the second year the painting crew will work on the facade of our vintage 1868 Cast Iron building. The guys soar from work area to work area gliding on a platform held high on a royal blue long necked ribbon of the crane. What a Herculean task they have taken on, scraping, prepping and painting the large facade of the building that started life housing a patent medicine factory appropriate to the era of its birth. As tenants, we enjoy the beautiful and sturdy wooden floors, walls of brick, some sporting graceful archways, plaster abstract shaped ceilings high above our heads and wavy, old flowing glass windows that fill most of the facade of the building.
I have adopted the habit of checking the windows for those innocent but determined faces that could appear from 7:30AM on as I may be entering the shower or other morning routines. Unannounced, they arrive to scrape and paint their way to the finish date sometime in the near future. It is a challenge to duck and avoid their unintentional gaze.
The accidental voyeur intrusion is behind us now. We are on the road for the next few months and free from the blue long necked held platforms appearing on our windowsills. The pigeons return as the workers depart, to poise on the window ledges cooing and wobbling back and forth communicating in language only other pigeons may understand.
We anticipate many adventures ahead of us on the road and in many campsites, where we also practise vigilance in closing window shades for privacy, keeping to the quiet hour rules and properly managing our hookups. At present, we are camped in a campground in Pennsylvania, called Shangri-La. We have stayed here many times and brought family members and guests with us. The campground is very child oriented, and on this Columbus weekend there are children and dogs everywhere managed by parents, relatives and siblings. Camping here has always been a place of transition to enter this other faze of our lives. Letting go is a process, whether it is seeing children off to kindergarten, camp, college, saying goodbye to dear friends, loosing a family member or dear friend, We will miss family, friends, favorite cultural venues, long walks along the river, and great memories. This year is made easier in anticipation of two of our grandsons celebrating their b’nei mitzvot in the coming months, and the adventures to come.
Life is full of change, enhanced by the ability to communicate electronically. Trying to keep on top of current vehicles to communicate is another adventure. Will we miss the hum of the blue necked crane at our windows? Probably not but we will welcome the joyous voices of children at play, hugs and kisses as we favorite people along the road, the delight of the next beautiful sunset out our rig’s windows and yet more enchanting discoveries throughout this vast and beautiful land of ours.
What a vivid and beautiful piece of writing.