An Elderly Woman Looks Out the Window
Chariklia Martalas
1st of March
The first time one swallows loneliness it is unintentional. As if loneliness is mixed in your drink and you downed it wondering what the bittersweet taste is. The second time one swallows loneliness it is because one is curious. The emptiness that comes with the bittersweet taste is almost a rush. It is that rush of feeling the full breadth of human experience even when it is terrible and takes you away from the world. But by the time you swallow loneliness everyday it becomes forced. A metaphorical gun to the head -- your pill madame? I grudgingly take it with my orange juice every morning right with my medication for my arthritis and those pills to get my bowels to move. Loneliness can become a metaphysical reality, a reality that bends itself around the furniture, the walls and especially the windows.
5th of March
My favourite part of the house is the windows, especially those windows that look outwards to the street. I love those windows because I use them like a television. The characters on the real television are given to me on a silver platter, where my mind doesn’t need to truly imagine. So I turn to the windows. Here I can imagine the characters of my neighbours purely through their gestures and the movement of their lips. I can see that old Thomas is having an affair, as he constantly smells his clothes before he walks into the house. I can see that his wife either doesn’t know or doesn’t mind because she pulls him into deep kisses in the driveway. Their children look perfectly normal and well adjusted- but yet they are too small to really have personalities. One of them the eldest daughter, Julia, is only six and yet we are kindred spirits in that she talks to herself as she plays. I talk to myself but I am not playing. Rather the silence of the house can become omnipresent and something needs to cut it away as if it was overgrown foliage. The only thing that can do it is my own voice, I like to think my voice is pruning shears that turn the silence into beautiful shapes to behold. Julia and I share the same habit of imaginary friends. Her imaginary friends follow her, mine stay outside and only acknowledge me with a wave or hello. Conversation in general is too much of an expense except with myself. Conversation is then as free as the loneliness.
23rd of March
There is no point writing everyday when days are monotonous. Days move into each other so much so that I wonder if my brain is forgetting purely because there is nothing to remember. Yes, Thomas’ wife Cynthia is no longer kissing him in the drive way and Julia broke her leg. And yes, the couple next door had a huge fight that went through their walls and my walls to land right up in my living room. I could hear the whole thing and was bitterly disappointed. This is not how I imagined their characters. She was too assertive and he was too weak. There is no balance to their dispositions.
29th of May
The house next to mine (on the right) finally has somebody; a relief because the garden is looking horribly overgrown. She is not who I would have expected to come live in suburbia. Firstly she is not old but rather young and unmarried. She has a frame that is strong and sturdy that is juxtaposed with her delicate hands. Her face is interesting to look at, definitely attractive in the fullness of her lips and the wideness of her eyes. But it is also a face that is pointy- almost bird like. Her h
air clearly dyed a vibrant red is swirled on top of her head. A peculiar person to come to suburbia, I wonder what Cynthia and Thomas will think of her. I have to admit to myself that I relish having another character to watch and learn about. I do realize that I am the cliché lonely elderly person that likes to be part of people’s lives because I have no one. It is a cliché that burns, a cliché that I was thrust into without a real choice. It’s a cliché that I will live out as spectacularly as I did my younger days. I live each stage vibrantly. My loneliness vibrates too.
31st of May
I don’t know her name so I just call her Birdy because of her face. Birdy seems to have settled in well. I was pleased to see that she went out in the garden today and pulled out some of the weeds. In other news, Thomas does not smell his clothes anymore and Cynthia has started kissing him again. Julia’s leg must also be healing. The couple next door haven’t had a fight in ages but after the last time I don’t find them as interesting anymore. Maybe they will resurrect themselves and show a little abnormality. I want my street to become a circus and me not to be the spectator but the ringmaster. Imagine Cynthia doing tricks for me? Imagine Birdy as my ingénue?
2nd of June
Birdy has brought home a man. I am surprised that her bird-like features could attract a man with such a beautiful face. I noticed his delicate lips and his strong brow- an unusual combination that was quite arresting. Now since I am part of the elderly I am sure it is expected of me to be judgemental over such a fact. But truly I am not. Instead I came quite happy for Birdy, she is certainly livelier than the woman who lived next door used to be. And that is exactly what this street needs- life- even though I am one of the ones hardly living. I know that what I need is purpose. It is very difficult to come by when you struggle to read. I used to have a degree of purpose in my husband. Poor man was quite useless without me and it felt good to be so important in another person’s functioning. It felt good that I could control the minutiae of his life while he thought he was controlling me. What an idiot, with a roar in his voice and cowardice in his hands. Everyone must know that I was indispensable; if I died first I am sure he would have died soon after me. He hated my writing. Always thought that I didn’t have the gift of language on my tongue or my pen. So I stopped because his aggravation that I was confessing our private life to a notebook was too much for him to bear. As soon as he died I bought myself a journal. I had more than forty years of rage to get out of me like an exorcism. I lived for that satisfaction until I couldn’t get it anymore. The rage was depleted but yet I continue to write. Hence why I am here able to tell you about Birdy and how miserable she looks all the time. I do worry about her.
30th of June
Birdy has stopped pulling out the weeds. I have an intense fear that this means that she is going to turn into the (late) woman before her who was just utterly neglectful of everything including herself. There is something so evil about neglect. It shows an indifference to the world that is almost cruel. The woman before her was repulsive to me with her unwashed hair and soiled clothes. In one of my conversations with Cynthia I advised her to keep her children away from her because she must be heavily diseased. Her death was not a surprise but it did stink up the street as her body was found only a week later. I thought it was a burst sewerage pipe but now I know only the dead can smell that terrible. I am worried that I will be the same. I know that I am held to a higher esteem in the street and possess a certain dignity and so I am sure if I don’t come out for my daily walk someone would be suspicious. But still people ignore the elderly every day.
14th of July
Birdy has avoided everyone on the street except for Thomas. A peculiar anti-socialness pervades that house. It is a detachment from everyone except other woman’s husbands. The woman before Birdy was quite adept at this before she let herself disintegrate. I have been watching this street for years even when I was younger. Observation is not a habit one picks up when one is older but rather is a life’s pursuit. I like to say that it is the writer in me, wringing out the loneliness. It is a curiosity for human life and strangers’ lives are infinitely more colourful than your own. Thomas is smelling his clothes again. Is it Birdy?
24th of July
I have decided to ask Birdy for tea. Let Birdy ebb my loneliness for even an hour. But mostly because even though I prefer to imagine the lives of the others Birdy seems too distant and so I need more to work with. I like to think of it as anthropological research. I used to have great teas with those on the street. I remember when Charlotte (who lives diagonally to me) first came to the street as a young bride, she came for tea and we sat in the kitchen discussing marriage and life. I cautioned her that she had to keep her husband close to her especially from the woman before Birdy. Her disheveledness came only later, before she was quite beautiful, also weirdly enough in a bird-like way. She used to carry herself with an air of ethereality. It was intoxicating to watch her move in and out of her house even for me. So it was my duty to inform her, I said, from my personal experience. I remember the gasp that came out of Charlotte, “but she has a child?” “And since when has that stopped a pernicious fornicating woman?” I declared. Charlotte nodded her head knowing that I was right. I didn’t need to caution anyone else. Charlotte did the work for me and the woman before Birdy was kept at a distance to save the street’s marriages.
5th of August
I cornered Birdy outside her driveway and asked her for tea. She looked very uneasy for some strange reason- I think some people are uncomfortable with the aged. It took more than a hesitation before she agreed. I finally know her real name -- Maeve. It is familiar to me, but by the time you reach a substantial age everything becomes familiar.
6th of August
Birdy came for tea! An experience like this needs to be written down properly not spoilt with my commentary at the beginning. When reading back my journals I was to keep the suspense.
Her wide eyes and pointy features felt particularly pronounced as her flaming red hair draped around her face. She looked cold and distant, which is exactly how I thought she would be. My imagination’s power was getting constantly validated.
“Thank you Maeve for coming. What an interesting name. Mine is quite typical.”
“I know your name, Astrid.”
“Did Cynthia tell you?” I chuckled
“No I grew up on this street. Don’t you remember me as a little girl?”
“You have to forgive an old lady’s memory.”
“I am living in the same house I grew up in. I am the daughter of Eileen.”
I was determined not to write down the name of the women before Birdy because names possess power and she had already been over used in my rage writings. I couldn’t believe that Birdy- I mean Maeve- was the daughter of Eileen. She certainly had the same bird-like aura but definitely didn’t possess the same ethereality that her mother possessed in abundance.
“I have come as a courtesy to say that I don’t want tea and I don’t want you to speak to me ever again.”
I must have looked dumbfounded. Maeve was presenting herself as unpredictable, which is exactly what I hoped she would be like.
“Why Maeve? Have I done something wrong?”
She looked at me with pure repulsion in her eyes. She gave me a similar look to the look I gave her mother. I felt the cold wash of another person’s hatred on my skin. Birdy should have stayed a figment of my imagination- I didn’t like Maeve. Quenching the loneliness was not worth it anymore.
“You are the reason my mother was ostracized. She loved people you know? And yet your rumours that she was a husband stealer left her friendless and alone.”
“But she was a husband stealer. I know because she stole mine.”
“That was not true. I remember her breaking down and weeping at how your husband made unwanted advances but she always turned him down. This broke her.”
I just stayed silent. I didn’t know what to say to this information that was clearly just a product of Eileen’s guilty conscious.
“You broke her,” continued Maeve. “Your cruelty was the beginning of her decline.”
Anger began to erupt in me. The rage felt good, I remembered that I did rage well as if it was an art form. Accusations here and there and yet Maeve had not been home in such a long time that I couldn’t recognize her. I obviously said this continuing.
“Your mother’s body was found a week later. Where were you Maeve? You say I broke her, well you let her disintegrate.”
Birdy erupts in tears and walked out of my house. Should my conscious feel any guilt? Absolutely not, I refuse. But something extraordinary did occur. Something as nourishing as rage. What Birdy has given me is a nudge at life, something interesting to report about my own life. It was exhilarating to stand there in front of her and speak my words. It was exhilarating that I could now be my own protagonist to my own journal entry. I now think to myself that those years might need a revisiting. Is this not the purpose I had wished for?
23rd of August
I had Cynthia over for tea. I have understood only now that loneliness is not just about loneliness but also about boredom. Birdy had awakened in me not just a wish for company but a wish for entertainment. Now I understand why loneliness was such a bitter pill to swallow- it was me not using my full capacities. I need more from my life than just pleasant imaginings through my window. I need to create my own vibrancy. Yes, Cynthia is not as interesting as my encounter with Birdy but she will have to do as Birdy won’t even look at me. Don’t look at me Birdy! I want to cry out. Rage is an occupation I have sorely missed.
“Cynthia,” I began. “Take this from personal experience. You need to keep your husband safe.”
“How come?” said Cynthia with a face that showed me that I clearly struck a nerve.
“Because Cynthia the woman next door, her name is Maeve, is not only a husband stealer but comes from a mother who was a husband stealer too.”
“No! But she seemed so nice?”
“They all do. Silence is the way to remedy it. Take this from personal experience.”
Chariklia Martalas
1st of March
The first time one swallows loneliness it is unintentional. As if loneliness is mixed in your drink and you downed it wondering what the bittersweet taste is. The second time one swallows loneliness it is because one is curious. The emptiness that comes with the bittersweet taste is almost a rush. It is that rush of feeling the full breadth of human experience even when it is terrible and takes you away from the world. But by the time you swallow loneliness everyday it becomes forced. A metaphorical gun to the head -- your pill madame? I grudgingly take it with my orange juice every morning right with my medication for my arthritis and those pills to get my bowels to move. Loneliness can become a metaphysical reality, a reality that bends itself around the furniture, the walls and especially the windows.
5th of March
My favourite part of the house is the windows, especially those windows that look outwards to the street. I love those windows because I use them like a television. The characters on the real television are given to me on a silver platter, where my mind doesn’t need to truly imagine. So I turn to the windows. Here I can imagine the characters of my neighbours purely through their gestures and the movement of their lips. I can see that old Thomas is having an affair, as he constantly smells his clothes before he walks into the house. I can see that his wife either doesn’t know or doesn’t mind because she pulls him into deep kisses in the driveway. Their children look perfectly normal and well adjusted- but yet they are too small to really have personalities. One of them the eldest daughter, Julia, is only six and yet we are kindred spirits in that she talks to herself as she plays. I talk to myself but I am not playing. Rather the silence of the house can become omnipresent and something needs to cut it away as if it was overgrown foliage. The only thing that can do it is my own voice, I like to think my voice is pruning shears that turn the silence into beautiful shapes to behold. Julia and I share the same habit of imaginary friends. Her imaginary friends follow her, mine stay outside and only acknowledge me with a wave or hello. Conversation in general is too much of an expense except with myself. Conversation is then as free as the loneliness.
23rd of March
There is no point writing everyday when days are monotonous. Days move into each other so much so that I wonder if my brain is forgetting purely because there is nothing to remember. Yes, Thomas’ wife Cynthia is no longer kissing him in the drive way and Julia broke her leg. And yes, the couple next door had a huge fight that went through their walls and my walls to land right up in my living room. I could hear the whole thing and was bitterly disappointed. This is not how I imagined their characters. She was too assertive and he was too weak. There is no balance to their dispositions.
29th of May
The house next to mine (on the right) finally has somebody; a relief because the garden is looking horribly overgrown. She is not who I would have expected to come live in suburbia. Firstly she is not old but rather young and unmarried. She has a frame that is strong and sturdy that is juxtaposed with her delicate hands. Her face is interesting to look at, definitely attractive in the fullness of her lips and the wideness of her eyes. But it is also a face that is pointy- almost bird like. Her h
air clearly dyed a vibrant red is swirled on top of her head. A peculiar person to come to suburbia, I wonder what Cynthia and Thomas will think of her. I have to admit to myself that I relish having another character to watch and learn about. I do realize that I am the cliché lonely elderly person that likes to be part of people’s lives because I have no one. It is a cliché that burns, a cliché that I was thrust into without a real choice. It’s a cliché that I will live out as spectacularly as I did my younger days. I live each stage vibrantly. My loneliness vibrates too.
31st of May
I don’t know her name so I just call her Birdy because of her face. Birdy seems to have settled in well. I was pleased to see that she went out in the garden today and pulled out some of the weeds. In other news, Thomas does not smell his clothes anymore and Cynthia has started kissing him again. Julia’s leg must also be healing. The couple next door haven’t had a fight in ages but after the last time I don’t find them as interesting anymore. Maybe they will resurrect themselves and show a little abnormality. I want my street to become a circus and me not to be the spectator but the ringmaster. Imagine Cynthia doing tricks for me? Imagine Birdy as my ingénue?
2nd of June
Birdy has brought home a man. I am surprised that her bird-like features could attract a man with such a beautiful face. I noticed his delicate lips and his strong brow- an unusual combination that was quite arresting. Now since I am part of the elderly I am sure it is expected of me to be judgemental over such a fact. But truly I am not. Instead I came quite happy for Birdy, she is certainly livelier than the woman who lived next door used to be. And that is exactly what this street needs- life- even though I am one of the ones hardly living. I know that what I need is purpose. It is very difficult to come by when you struggle to read. I used to have a degree of purpose in my husband. Poor man was quite useless without me and it felt good to be so important in another person’s functioning. It felt good that I could control the minutiae of his life while he thought he was controlling me. What an idiot, with a roar in his voice and cowardice in his hands. Everyone must know that I was indispensable; if I died first I am sure he would have died soon after me. He hated my writing. Always thought that I didn’t have the gift of language on my tongue or my pen. So I stopped because his aggravation that I was confessing our private life to a notebook was too much for him to bear. As soon as he died I bought myself a journal. I had more than forty years of rage to get out of me like an exorcism. I lived for that satisfaction until I couldn’t get it anymore. The rage was depleted but yet I continue to write. Hence why I am here able to tell you about Birdy and how miserable she looks all the time. I do worry about her.
30th of June
Birdy has stopped pulling out the weeds. I have an intense fear that this means that she is going to turn into the (late) woman before her who was just utterly neglectful of everything including herself. There is something so evil about neglect. It shows an indifference to the world that is almost cruel. The woman before her was repulsive to me with her unwashed hair and soiled clothes. In one of my conversations with Cynthia I advised her to keep her children away from her because she must be heavily diseased. Her death was not a surprise but it did stink up the street as her body was found only a week later. I thought it was a burst sewerage pipe but now I know only the dead can smell that terrible. I am worried that I will be the same. I know that I am held to a higher esteem in the street and possess a certain dignity and so I am sure if I don’t come out for my daily walk someone would be suspicious. But still people ignore the elderly every day.
14th of July
Birdy has avoided everyone on the street except for Thomas. A peculiar anti-socialness pervades that house. It is a detachment from everyone except other woman’s husbands. The woman before Birdy was quite adept at this before she let herself disintegrate. I have been watching this street for years even when I was younger. Observation is not a habit one picks up when one is older but rather is a life’s pursuit. I like to say that it is the writer in me, wringing out the loneliness. It is a curiosity for human life and strangers’ lives are infinitely more colourful than your own. Thomas is smelling his clothes again. Is it Birdy?
24th of July
I have decided to ask Birdy for tea. Let Birdy ebb my loneliness for even an hour. But mostly because even though I prefer to imagine the lives of the others Birdy seems too distant and so I need more to work with. I like to think of it as anthropological research. I used to have great teas with those on the street. I remember when Charlotte (who lives diagonally to me) first came to the street as a young bride, she came for tea and we sat in the kitchen discussing marriage and life. I cautioned her that she had to keep her husband close to her especially from the woman before Birdy. Her disheveledness came only later, before she was quite beautiful, also weirdly enough in a bird-like way. She used to carry herself with an air of ethereality. It was intoxicating to watch her move in and out of her house even for me. So it was my duty to inform her, I said, from my personal experience. I remember the gasp that came out of Charlotte, “but she has a child?” “And since when has that stopped a pernicious fornicating woman?” I declared. Charlotte nodded her head knowing that I was right. I didn’t need to caution anyone else. Charlotte did the work for me and the woman before Birdy was kept at a distance to save the street’s marriages.
5th of August
I cornered Birdy outside her driveway and asked her for tea. She looked very uneasy for some strange reason- I think some people are uncomfortable with the aged. It took more than a hesitation before she agreed. I finally know her real name -- Maeve. It is familiar to me, but by the time you reach a substantial age everything becomes familiar.
6th of August
Birdy came for tea! An experience like this needs to be written down properly not spoilt with my commentary at the beginning. When reading back my journals I was to keep the suspense.
Her wide eyes and pointy features felt particularly pronounced as her flaming red hair draped around her face. She looked cold and distant, which is exactly how I thought she would be. My imagination’s power was getting constantly validated.
“Thank you Maeve for coming. What an interesting name. Mine is quite typical.”
“I know your name, Astrid.”
“Did Cynthia tell you?” I chuckled
“No I grew up on this street. Don’t you remember me as a little girl?”
“You have to forgive an old lady’s memory.”
“I am living in the same house I grew up in. I am the daughter of Eileen.”
I was determined not to write down the name of the women before Birdy because names possess power and she had already been over used in my rage writings. I couldn’t believe that Birdy- I mean Maeve- was the daughter of Eileen. She certainly had the same bird-like aura but definitely didn’t possess the same ethereality that her mother possessed in abundance.
“I have come as a courtesy to say that I don’t want tea and I don’t want you to speak to me ever again.”
I must have looked dumbfounded. Maeve was presenting herself as unpredictable, which is exactly what I hoped she would be like.
“Why Maeve? Have I done something wrong?”
She looked at me with pure repulsion in her eyes. She gave me a similar look to the look I gave her mother. I felt the cold wash of another person’s hatred on my skin. Birdy should have stayed a figment of my imagination- I didn’t like Maeve. Quenching the loneliness was not worth it anymore.
“You are the reason my mother was ostracized. She loved people you know? And yet your rumours that she was a husband stealer left her friendless and alone.”
“But she was a husband stealer. I know because she stole mine.”
“That was not true. I remember her breaking down and weeping at how your husband made unwanted advances but she always turned him down. This broke her.”
I just stayed silent. I didn’t know what to say to this information that was clearly just a product of Eileen’s guilty conscious.
“You broke her,” continued Maeve. “Your cruelty was the beginning of her decline.”
Anger began to erupt in me. The rage felt good, I remembered that I did rage well as if it was an art form. Accusations here and there and yet Maeve had not been home in such a long time that I couldn’t recognize her. I obviously said this continuing.
“Your mother’s body was found a week later. Where were you Maeve? You say I broke her, well you let her disintegrate.”
Birdy erupts in tears and walked out of my house. Should my conscious feel any guilt? Absolutely not, I refuse. But something extraordinary did occur. Something as nourishing as rage. What Birdy has given me is a nudge at life, something interesting to report about my own life. It was exhilarating to stand there in front of her and speak my words. It was exhilarating that I could now be my own protagonist to my own journal entry. I now think to myself that those years might need a revisiting. Is this not the purpose I had wished for?
23rd of August
I had Cynthia over for tea. I have understood only now that loneliness is not just about loneliness but also about boredom. Birdy had awakened in me not just a wish for company but a wish for entertainment. Now I understand why loneliness was such a bitter pill to swallow- it was me not using my full capacities. I need more from my life than just pleasant imaginings through my window. I need to create my own vibrancy. Yes, Cynthia is not as interesting as my encounter with Birdy but she will have to do as Birdy won’t even look at me. Don’t look at me Birdy! I want to cry out. Rage is an occupation I have sorely missed.
“Cynthia,” I began. “Take this from personal experience. You need to keep your husband safe.”
“How come?” said Cynthia with a face that showed me that I clearly struck a nerve.
“Because Cynthia the woman next door, her name is Maeve, is not only a husband stealer but comes from a mother who was a husband stealer too.”
“No! But she seemed so nice?”
“They all do. Silence is the way to remedy it. Take this from personal experience.”