People in Their Privacies
At the McColl Center in Charlotte
So much happens when we’re not looking. We’re unaware, tucked in, oblivious to life that is churning outside our door.
My parents were once discussing doorbell cameras with friends and someone said, “I’ll just say that maybe you really don’t want to know who’s wandering around in the middle of the night.” Yikes, but true. The place they were discussing is where my parents live during the summer — a quaint and historic, but nonetheless very bustling and urban, city. Front doors are situated pretty much right on the street. But truthfully, I think this could apply anywhere. In high school, I had an early morning paper route that had to be done by 6 am. Did that house on the private road off of 107th know that one morning around 5:15 my emergency brake got stuck — I drove a manual so a necessary component! — after I parked in the middle of their driveway, blocking everyone in? That I had to run a half mile back home, get my dad to come help me loosen the brake with a hammer? Nope. That was my own drama under the cloak of darkness. (RIP 1977 Saab.)
There’s a thin line between inside and outside. Between what we know and what we don’t. Things seen and unseen and all that. Right now, I’m looking out my window at a skyscraper, aware that an entire parallel, corporate world is happening across the street. I know nothing of it and nothing of the people.
“What could be known about people in their privacies? No eyes could see beyond a closed door or into a heart.” That line is from The Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan, which I’m reading now. Fiction gives readers a way to cross that thin line and peer at other “people in their privacies.” The author is the connector.
So, here’s a lacy heel perched outside our building on a Saturday morning. (I mean, I probably would have abandoned it too…) An author could write some grand story about its owner and what happened, but people — even fictitious ones — will always remain somewhat unknowable. And when an author recognizes this fact — that a whole life is happening outside your door, but no one except the person in question *really* knows the whole story — that is where the really excellent writing sits.
originally published on instagram