Apartments are strange places.
You’re in a building full of strangers (since it is very rare that neighbors in apartment buildings will introduce themselves to each other). But there is a sense of a familiarity that is developed, and it’s almost unnoticed. It sometimes comes from brief passings in the hallway, holding the outer door open for a neighbor weighed down by groceries, or recognizing a certain car always parked in the parking lot. Sometimes this becomes a sort of anonymous familiarity, fostered through muffled sounds coming through the walls and floorboards, conversations heard across open windows and down balconies, and in scents of different foods wafting through the outer hallways.
Without knowing you’ll begin to say, “Ah, the lady upstairs is exercising again...” or “That kid is getting better with his piano practice!” Sometimes exclaiming, “Come look! The eskimo shiba puppy is on a walk outside!” Or noticing, “Aw, the downstairs apartment is empty again. I wonder where that family went.”
Sometimes, you won’t realize it until you’re in your apartment feeling kind of lonely, kind of down, utterly alone. But then you hear a loud sneeze from one of your neighbors and hear another shout “BLESS YOU!” That you realize that you’re not alone. That just as your neighbors have an impact on you, you too have an impact on them. And even though this might not be what you think of when you traditionally think of community, it is one nevertheless.
