stoopless in brownstone Brooklyn

The lookout. The most important part of a denizen’s city life. To know what others are doing and to be a part of the situation, if only as an onlooker. To give witness. To make real. To be a part of the whole mess of life. Who comes by, when. Deliveries, trash pick-up. Rag-pickers, can-collectors, neighbors, bikers, babies, dogs. Everyone, every thing, every day. This is living in New York: seeing it.

One of our dogs – it has always been one, always this one – wants to look outside. She does not want so much to be outside. She just wants to know what is going on and occasionally say something about it. The screens are torn by her toe-nailed alarms at the large windows at the front of our apartment that overlook the street. Not much goes on on our street – no, that is wrong. So much goes on on our street that I can only see and live a sliver. Doxy, too, lives her sliver, and she loves it.

We are moving in a few weeks, just down the street. We are losing these windows onto the street and our “backyard,” the tiny patio that is my lookout. A lookout to only the backs of buildings, but a lookout for me. Sometimes the backs of buildings and the swath of sky beyond them are exactly what I want to look at.

There will be a new view, new lookouts for both dog and person. New sounds, new smells, new shadows and strangers. Doxy will adjust to the new windows. I’ll have to set something up so she can see out. I wouldn’t ever move into a place where not all of us could see the whole life.