The Time of Blinds and Guilt
We’re almost four months in to our experience living in a high rise Seattle apartment building. It’s mid-Summer now, and hot, so our view is mostly obscured by our own blinds, which we have to pull down and close against the sun. Heat rises, and without those blinds and our windows open, we roast. With the blinds and the windows open, the temperature is pleasant, and a nice, constant wind blows through the apartment from room to room. It’s interesting, though: without the drop-dead view from our perch, the apartment becomes something else entirely. Essentially, it feels like a small house without a yard. I find myself getting irritated more easily, and feeling a strange lethargy when the blinds are down. It’s made me wonder what our city experience would be like if we were lower down: say, on the 10th floor, or the 2nd. How much of our contentment is dependent upon our altitude? And why does that view transform the feel of our home here so tremendously? What is it giving us, exactly, besides the obvious illusion views provide of greater space?
We’ve met enough people in our building now to hear about their different apartment experiences. From those at a similar height but facing south, we hear about greater heat as well as greater noise, as the hardworking fire station is kitty-corner to the end of our block there. One person on the 11th floor, also facing south, spoke of the dust that seemed to perpetually swirl in from the streets below. He had moved from a lower floor to try to avoid it. In his case, altitude didn’t bring relief: we agreed that most likely he needed to do a double change: greater height, as well as picking a different point on the compass. Northern-facing apartments here seem out of the air streams carrying the dust. He nods a bit sadly: he wishes he had known that when he chose his second apartment.
Our apartment faces both east and north. To the north is the Space Needle: right there. We watch the tiny crowds up there behind the glass. They have a perfect view through our glass balcony doors into our bedroom: something we didn’t realize until one night when I mentioned this to my husband, and we looked at one another for a long moment. Do they have telescopes up there? Yes, I think so. We close that balcony blind at night now.
But no matter what the weather, as soon as the sun has moved location, or dropped down behind the Olympics for the night, we open our living room blinds. I still think night is my favorite time in this apartment: that giant deep blue-black sky a well-painted backdrop to the myriad white and yellow-glowing rectangles of the apartments in the buildings all throughout the city. The holiday-vibe colored lights on the cranes take on Lite-Brite dinosaur shapes and the Chihuly Glass Museum glows like something on fire. The sense of height is changed at night: there isn’t such an expansive view, as both Puget Sound and Lake Union go dark, becoming mysterious black absences, but the view becomes bejeweled, and more intimate. Daytime up this high is like the lobby of a contemporary museum. Night is like a smoky club just before the singer comes out, or after the band has left.
Having the blinds closed during the day has made me either compelled to leave the apartment and go out into the world, or, conversely, to do big-time, pull-out-all-the stops nesting. My son and I draw, our backs to the blinded windows. We build with Legos and watch movies and read books out loud to one another. We wrestle with our dog and clean my son’s room and make concoctions in the kitchen. In a way we act like it’s winter here in our summertime apartment. Maybe the view is so compelling it’s a distraction. When the blinds are up and the windows are showing what they show, Guilt definitely enters the picture, shaking its fist at us: demanding to know why we aren’t out there in it: that glorious northwest scenery; that vibrant downtown scene. So although the closed blinds make me feel closed in, there’s been a comfort there, too. It’s like we closed the door on a nagging, judgmental phantom relative who never thinks what we’re doing is quite good enough.
Right now the blinds are down in the bedrooms and the living room. The windows are open, letting in all the noises of the city. My son sits here next to me, creating a Minecraft building while I write this blog. I like the coziness of feeling like we can just stay in for a bit. That crazy-beautiful summer sun isn’t making its demands just now. But even so, I look forward to tonight, when the north-western sky turns electric pink, the lights begin to emerge, and we can raise the blinds once again. Guilt-free.
