Smokes and Mirrors

          

      So, I live right behind a pizza shop, right? In a cute, little apartment that’s really old and kind of falling apart, but in an adorable sort of way. There are some other apartment buildings adjacent to mine, probably just as dulcetly decaying. I’m guessing, as I’ve only gotten glimpses of the spaces my neighbors inhabit. I see my neighbors, but I don’t really see them, if you know what I mean.

    Well, attached to my apartment is a little brown deck with wide, steep steps. The paint is peeling everywhere and one of the stairs just gave up on me last summer. Stepped on it, and it decided it would be fun to detach and do a little surfing. I found out quickly, I am not good at surfing.

This deck is where I am most likely to observe my neighbors. I’ll hang out on the little chairs that barely fit, drinking coffee, pretending to read, most likely on my phone. I’m kind of perched up high, so whenever they come out, I can see pretty much everything they’re doing. And it’s awkward. Because I’m not sure if they see me, but I see them. I want them to see me. I want to say, “Hi,”, you know?

One day, I was going for a run. I came out onto the porch and on the cement was a woman with her two kids. New neighbors. I hadn’t had a chance to introduce myself. She was doing “good mother” activities with them. Planting green things in green pots. I had her. There was no running away. So, I clop down those wide steps and I give her my most genuine smile, which wasn’t genuine because I was thinking too hard about it. I introduce myself and she tells me her name and the names of her boys. They’re cute. Talkative. Kind of impish. I tell her if they need anything, to let me know.

I know they will never need anything from me, but I believe in the social ritual.

The woman is pretty. Skinnier than I have ever been, even after giving birth twice. The female body is a marvel. She has long hair. Dark metal piercings decorate her ears and face. This day of our official meeting, she is wearing a Gryffindor shirt. Instantly, I feel like I can trust her. I instinctively trust anyone who likes Harry Potter. Yet, I am a little intimidated by her. So, I go on my run.

I still don’t know much about this woman.

A name.

A mother.

A Gryffindor.

Quiet.

And then, it becomes apparent, a smoker.

I didn’t realize it was her at first. But slowly, cigarettes popped up all over the parking lot. It could have been anyone’s litter. The pizza shop got a lot of traffic. But then I saw her one night, sitting at the bottom of her steps, smoking. Probably trying to take a break from being a mom, from her work, from whatever hand life had dealt her. Trying to catch a breath.

And you know, I don’t judge her for smoking. I honestly don’t. I’ve never smoked, but I understand the need to engage in destructive habits. And it’s an addiction, yeah? You don’t judge addictions. But, what I do judge her for is leaving her cigarettes on the pavement.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe it goes back to that one summer at Christian Camp where the pastor brought in some random dude who talked about the dangers of smoking and how it can take up to 10 years for a cigarette to break down. That always stuck with me. I look at all the cigarette butts on the ground and feel this crumbling despair. It’s like, think about the impact you’re leaving on the world. Depressing. Decades of cigarette butts, clogging up the arteries of the earth. What a legacy. I don’t get it. You put something in your lungs that will slowly kill you and then offer the vestiges back to an unwilling receptacle.

I’ve thought about cleaning them up, you know. Just getting my dustpan and hand broom and sweeping them away. That would be the decent thing to do, wouldn’t it? But I don’t. And yet, every day, I come out on my decrepit porch and see a sea of cigarettes. Every day, I judge her for her actions.

Who is this woman who flicks her trash to the ground?

Every day, I judge my inaction.

Who am I that I don’t intervene in this ongoing destruction?

And why is it easier to see the cigarettes than the woman who smokes them?