I Notice Too Much

I notice too much. In the last seven minutes I’ve attempted to clarify for the person behind the coffee shop counter that I wanted a small to-go cup, only to have her point out that what I thought was small in the display of cups—which seems to have changed overnight—is the cup for espresso. The girl-woman barista preparing the specialty drinks at a high counter to my right glared at me with what seemed disapproval of some sort. I wonder if she even realizes she was glaring. Or did she intend to register disapproval of my attempt to be helpful. Regardless, the girl-woman at the register gave me incorrect change—too little—but why should I care. The change always goes into the tip jar anyway.

Sitting outside at a table with a view of the entire north side of the mall parking lot, on a Sunday morning where there is still little activity, I just noticed a 20-something clad in shorts, t-shirt and flip flops, get into his Lexus SUV, and of course, I wonder what kind of job he has at such a young-seeming age that permits him the luxury of sitting behind the wheel of an impressive part of his bank account. He could be a lawyer or doctor or whoever makes big bucks these days. I’m not aware that Santa Fe is the Silicon Valley of the high desert. He could be leasing. What do I know?

Another couple of 20-somethings, also clad in day-off summer apparel—de rigeur for many on most days in this place—has just boarded her older, sun-baked black Honda, whose paint seems to have turned to chalk. His passenger door didn’t engage completely, it seems. Sounds really carry here. Be careful what you say in earshot of others. Sometimes you don’t even realize that someone 20 feet away, or someone you don’t even see, might hear your most private, or scandalous, or judgmental thoughts. Ah, in spite of our subterfuge, we are, in the end, an open book.

Since refrigerated air is not common in older residential construction here, many of us sleep with our windows open to catch the cool night air. I live in a densely situated compound of 260 condominiums. Really, they are apartments, stacked two story except for a small group at the back, which are three stories. We buy, and many people have bought for so-called investment, renting out their condo for as short a time as one-month increments.

As I lay in bed at night with a book, usually as early as nine or so, I can easily hear any conversation conducted on the common grounds nearby, or a phone conversation from below where my neighbor has her patio door open to the night air. This morning I heard her around 6:30, first talking to her cat, then apparently on the phone. Daily, at all hours that people are normally awake, you hear doors close-slam as your neighbors come and go. It reminds me of a high school play I saw as a child where a ghost played by my now 82-year-old aunt’s sister went through door after door after door—BLAM, BLAM, BLAM. Even as I write, I can hear the stentorian yankee pipes of my down stair’s neighbor from the sidewalk outside her front door, separated from my open upstairs balcony door by a good 50 feet. Surely she could speak at rallies without benefit of amplification. She speaks for the world to hear—our own Ethel Merman.

If you have the misfortune of living near someone here who sleeps most of the day and roams most of the night, talking on his cell phone from his balcony at midnight, you hear that as well. My across-the-landing neighbor went away for the summer, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that I won’t have to struggle with or tend to his sleep-robbing habits for a while. God spare me from having to exercise the curmudgeonry of my Virgo sensitivities.

I laughed with relief when a friend in Texas announced at a barbecue she and her husband held the Sunday evening before I returned to Santa Fe that she must have white noise to sleep at night. Wonderful, another soul who needs to be spared the noise—even of silence—when she attempts to rest. Because our homes here are situated not far from a major highway, between two arroyos about 50 feet lower than the highway, we can hear the traffic any time, day or night. Its constant thrum of the indistinguishable doesn’t bother me. Conversations outside my second-story bedroom window rob me of the reprieve from human commerce I need for sleep.

As I sat at a small table outside the coffee shop this morning, there was much to notice, including a massive 18-wheeler parked parallel to the lot directly in front of the coffee shop and the three other businesses sharing a common roof. When I drove up I assumed that the truck was making a delivery. A little later, as the one of the shop employees sat at the next table, talking to an older friend, she first talked about her recent boyfriend and their conflicted separation and split. Their last phone conversation ended with his saying, “I love you. See you around.” I really didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it seems that I couldn’t avoid it. We are only feet apart. Shortly, she decided that the 18-wheeler, which she had discovered on arriving at 5 this morning, needed to go because it was blocking traffic flow and one of the two entrances into their particular parking area. “Rap, rap, rap” on the sleeping part of his truck cab. No response. “Rap, rap, rap” again, and he roused. After a couple of minutes he crawled forward to the driver’s seat and rolled down his window. “How do you get to Taos from here?” he asked. Those of us sitting at the small cluster of tables all answered, clarified. He looks stunned from too little sleep.

“Do you want some coffee,” the shop employee asks. “Sure,” he replies. “Large? Cream? Sugar?” she heads into the shop.

That about does it for me, I thought. I wasn’t getting much done, so I headed out to begin my regular two-mile morning walk around the perimeter of the mall complex. “You’ve done one of your good deeds for today,” I commented, pleased that I had witnessed this generosity toward a fellow pilgrim. “Maybe that’ll bring you ten new customers.” “Ten new painting students,” she replied, smiling. “That too,” I ended. How can you not notice when so much is going on right around you?

I Notice Too Much—Santa Fe, New Mexico (June 23, 2008)

R. Harold Hollis