Throughout this pandemic, lockdown to-do lists have risen to the level of holy orders, many even note that Shakespeare wrote “King Lear” and “Macbeth” during London’s Black Plague. But I gotta ask: since when is Shakespeare the bar? Though my bar is the how-low-can-you-go type, a sense of urgency hounds me to get things crossed off before the lockdown ends. The most crucial action-to-take on my list is fixing up our fourth-floor walk-up apartment on the Lower East Side, LES. Or some say East Village. Or maybe you prefer Alphabet City. Whatever. The science says, algorithms confirm: lockdown can’t end until our apartment is spruced up.
For three decades my hubby Arthur and I have lived together in this apartment and we still love our humble home—in spite of its having no closets. We did have a tiny backroom that was our closet/guest room with single bed, till our teenage granddaughter moved in and took over that space, causing us to put everything we own in the living room. Clutter, clutter, clutter. Several friends, upon seeing this jumble, offered to help us de-clutter. I wanted to strangle them. You take everything out of your closets and put it in your living room, see how that looks. What they somehow can’t comprehend is that without closets, everything is everywhere. Our stuff, which we actually have only small amounts of, looks like clutter because the only place to put it is where everyone can see it—piles of shoes, CDs, books, photos, ironing, six packs of toilet paper, bins of writings from dead friends and family. They have no idea how bare our place would be if we only had a closet. (Cue singing: If I only had a closet.) I don’t get anything new unless I throw something away—new t-shirt in, old t-shirt out.
Now, with our granddaughter grownup and moved out, as have her mother and two other grandkids who lived in that backroom at various times, it is ours again. Time to fix up the apartment with its ugly ceiling stains from radiator leaks, disgusting rust and black ridges on the window frame from the ancient gates we removed a few years ago, and, worst of all, the carpet in the backroom. When we had our floors leveled, about eight inch slant over a ten-foot span, they put in a plywood frame. Instead of wood flooring over it, we stupidly chose a rug, me seeing the wall-to-wall carpet as luxurious and lasting forever. And back then, thirty years seemed like forever. But time had its way with our carpet (and us). What I thought of as our bougie status symbol morphed into its opposite—no symbol, just a filthy, stained, very tangible rug. Even its backing was disintegrating. So we stacked the bed, desk, and dresser into our living room, leaving a tiny walk space, and the construction guys pulled that evil-looking thing out, gross fibers flying everywhere. Then they installed shiny oak flooring and built a closet with sliding white doors. Serious bougie.
Over the course of two months, we moved our every possession, stacking things in every not-being-worked-on crevice of the apartment. Once the backroom was completed, we put much of the living room “clutter” into our new closet. Then it was the living room’s turn for a makeover. After the ceiling’s recessed canned lighting was installed and the painting finished, we put photos and art back up, thrilled to have some blank space around them to better showcase Arthur’s ceramics, my five-foot wide weaving, and the framed family pictures. We walked through the apartment, awestruck; though we have been here together for thirty years, it suddenly hit us: we owned our apartment, our very own home.
But don’t get it twisted. Our low-income coop ain’t all that upscale; our leveled floors tilt slightly, our window frames are chipped, that warped metal cabinet in the kitchen needs replacing, and we still have to hike up four floors. But it is our home; we’ve been blessed by the apartment gods.
I looked around. Everything in its place. Lighting upgraded. A cover over our ancient chipped cast iron radiator. Our home, clean and orderly. I freaked: this isn’t me. I missed the hodge-podge that meant our daughter or granddaughter lived here. I missed having our apartment look like what I always felt like, a struggling artist/writer, a person who stuck things on the wall impulsively with a slap-dash sensibility that meant change, action, life. When my first hubby and I lived in Berkeley, California, we got an apartment, but for months we had no furniture, except a mattress on the bedroom floor and a radio we bought for a dollar. At that time, I loved looking at the empty living room, nothing but blank walls and a window. Standing in the silence, I felt it all as possibility. Future. A dream of a new life. Fifty years later, our rehabbed New York apartment suddenly felt like a finished life, a life being wrapped up.
Maybe this was just the ordinary response to finishing something, heightened by the fact that crossing apartment painting etc off the list meant lockdown can end. Do I want it to end? Covid can end, but I’d like this interim state to continue so I can live in the world that is all possibility. My brain swerves, takes a turn, and I’m practically gleeful about seeing people again. Then I think, People are way overrated. I just want to stay home.
When they announced lockdown was going to last two weeks, I was horrified. No way I could stay in that long, but now we’ve done fifteen months and I don’t want to leave. At the same time, I’m thirsting to travel to see family, go to the movies, see a play, hear live music, visit friends,. And I want to do it all right now!! Maybe I’m simply suffering from Covid-Brain: can’t make a decision while some deep anxiety surfaces and emotions boomerang—fast, rash, and fickle. You know, the way Covid-Time makes us miss appointments and forget what day it is. And Covid-Love—oh, the stories I’ve heard. But for right now, you’ll be happy to know, apartment painting etc has a slash through it. Let Dr. Fauci and the legislative gods be advised: Covid and lockdown can end now. As Bob Marley’s three little birds say, everything’s gonna be alright.
