When I lived in Osaka on the 11th floor of an apartment building smack downtown, there would often be a brown haze over everything. Okay, well, duh. But this brown haze translated into this weird, dusty film that would affix itself to everything. Plus, you’d sometimes be sitting in your apartment and take a breath — on the 11th floor — and be astonished to breathe in a whelp of unmistakable car exhaust.
When I went back to my birthplace, Calcutta, India, in 1997, I was astonished by the brown cloud, hour after hour, visible from my plane as I approached the city.
And now I live on the 8th floor of an apartment building in downtown Montreal.
I like to read books on the balcony on good days, and I leave them outside. But every time I pick them up the next day they’ve got that ugly, slightly sticky grime on them, and I say to myself, this is what I’m sitting on the balcony for? To get a breath of fresh air?
Ah, the pleasures and hazards of living in the city. A balance I enjoyed rather well during my tenure there. However, since my inexplicable move to the suburbs a few years ago, I now face another form of pollution when trying to enjoy the great outdoors; the endless drone of lawn mowers.
ReplyDeleteI'm not being facetious; noise pollution causes me more anxiety than air pollution. And I swear these neighbours of mine are psychic; as soon as I've set up the hammock and poured a beer (or put the final touches on the bbq'ed beef, or set myself up with a book and a tall chilly cocktail), it's rrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR from three sides.
God, let's please just leave the noise alone. You have NOT LIVED until you go to a place where literally, you can hear a pin drop . . . and see the stars!!! Remember them? I wear earplugs every night--I can't sleep without them. The sirens, the boombox asshole cars--it's endless. You just don't realise how noisy your life is until you just take a moment to listen.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I arise out of my seat on the balcony and actually yell "What the fuck????" because of some asshole motorcyclist who has chosen to modify his muffler.
Yet not a peep out of a grasshopper at night . . . that's what I miss most.