Belltown Messenger

A few weeks ago, in an elevator of the condo edifice I call home, things suddenly turned uncomfortable. But long before the discomfort began, my resentment had begun to build.

I live one space beneath a fledgling guitar player, a man who will indulge in a forty-minute strum-fest at, say, 12:30 a.m., which is the dead of night to any number of "elderly" residents of my building (translation: anyone over the age of 30). Call me querulous if you wish, but when someone doesn't care to notice that others are sharing his four walls, what we have is self-centeredness at work, not a musician.

But despite the thrumming noise that can make life less than ideal for a writer, I generally preserve my combative protests for the truly intolerable noises in Belltown life, such as when I need to holler "HEY!" to a tribe of college boys going ballistic under my window in that interminable hour after last call.

Except I didn't preserve my combative protest. The plucking and strumming was too much. Stop, stop, stop! I imagined myself shouting, forcing him to throw his guitar over the balcony.

Coincidentally, even as I write this in my bathrobe on a Sunday morning at 8 a.m when most of the city is blessedly hushed, he's strumming away, which anyone with an ounce of fellow feeling just wouldn't do, the sound of indifference descending on me.

I don't know why I finally surrendered to the urge to do something; perhaps whenever I'm fed up to here I rely on my bravado. More likely, I figured any action is better than letting my noise rage collect. Don't give into anger, I thought. It's only a guitar. I'll be okay. But I wasn't okay. I was on the wrong side of reverberation and what began as an annoyance morphed into full-blown animosity. Maybe resentment is always a dry field waiting for a spark.

But in my defense, I remained relatively calm. I wasn't confrontational with Mr. Guitarman, whose chords were affecting my sanity at the very least. I didn't wave my hands around while he followed my gesticulations with his eyes, anger making me say mean things. No, I reached for the yellow Post-it pad I consider as damage control (I admit it: I whimped out) to ask him to consider getting one of those devices that would send his music echoing right back at him through a set of headphones. I have no idea what the device is called, but I did sign the note with a polite apology (Why was I apologizing? Why was I apologizing?) before I stuck it to his door after peering out both sides of the elevator to be sure no one saw me.

One of the worst things that can happen between neighbors (just ask anyone who has tried) is to point out what annoys you about their noise/pet/habits. Whether you cozy in at ground level and the problem is a neighbor's dog poop let go on your precious lot; or, if you nest at a loftier elevation, once the complaint is vocalized the relationship is forever doomed. Even if things go politely consensual at first. "Where there is possession, there is war!" someone wise once said.

OH! The shock of my life. He knew the note came from me! How did he know it was me? He has other neighbors. In fact, each of us is the center of a hub in terms of location. So when he confronted me in the elevator (that's the basic scenario), my face went very still. I let out a squeak. My embarrassment was utter. Where's the damn lobby?

"Yes, it was me," I said through white lips. And even though I stood my ground, arguing my point while trying to summon a nonchalant smile, I was abashed to learn I had no clue how to behave. And when he promised in a patronizing rather than conciliatory tone not to play in the "wee hours of the morn," I thanked him through clenched teeth. Because what he actually meant, as far as I could tell, is something along the lines of, "I have no intention of accommodating you or anyone else, ever."

Anyway, long conclusion short,нн I'm writing this to say it's amazing how long it takes certain messages to sink in, but when they do, life lakes a revelatory leap and the change is swift. (Like when suddenly every woman's boots are, just like that, sluttishly worn outside of her jeans whether she has thighs thin enough to carry it or not.)

Maybe ill-will between a wannabe maestro and a writer-who-needs-quiet is inevitable. Or maybe because people have become increasingly impersonal, our city more and more nonconcentric, I turned my focus on my building's inner universe in order to feel I have some sort of control over my life. It's easier to think about Mr. Guitarman than about global warming or the world's woes, to blame some guy with a tin ear rather than mankind's daftness. It could well be that elementary.

Because in condo living, as in all of life, what goes around will surely come screeching around. I fully expect my actions to annoy the hell out of someone soon. Like the couple of times I've run my washer at midnight when I know the spin cycle vibrates the walls and floor causing, I just bet, my neighbors' heads to chafe with disbelief.

Eventually I'm going to hear about it. As well I should.

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Sanelli's latest book is Falling Awake: An American Woman Gets a Grip on the Whole Changing World One Essay At A Time (Aequitas Books, NY, 2007).