The Neighborhood

Every night before I go to bed I turn off all the
lights and peek out each window. I like to peer
across at my neighbors to see a little bit
of what life might be like for a local. One window
looks out into the kitchens of apartments and
inevitably I will see 3 saree-dressed ladies
gossiping as they work. Sometimes they are
rolling out chapatis, sometimes they are washing
dishes, and sometimes they are doing nothing more than
enjoying talking. Out another window I see a
big sister putting her 2 younger siblings to bed.
The kids are usually so wound up they can't sit still
and the older girl has to reprimand them. Eventually
they settle down, the light goes off, and they stop
wiggling. Another window looks in to the dining
room of a very posh family, but I have only once seen
more than one person there. Usually there is a man
or a woman sitting alone at the table. Our bedroom
window looks out on a construction site that I've
mentioned before. I hear hammering and sawing well
into the night, but I also hear lively music and
laughing.

I think the world would be a better
place if everyone could see outside the
window and realize we're not that different
from one another.

By the way, I think it's terribly funny that my spell-checker
find hepatitis as the closest match to chapatis.