We’re getting verrrry close to moving into the new apartment (!!) minus one small kink: there is no electricity there yet. I’ve been so focused on getting all of our stuff moved over there and organized, and the fact that the electricity has not been activated yet (despite the fact that we were assured that it totally would be, seriously don’t even worry about it, ragazzi) that I sort of haven’t even processed that once we move, we won’t come back to this other apartment any more. I mean… obviously. But we have spent almost a full year going to the new place on weekends and in spare moments to check on its progress, first as a construction site and then as one or the other of us moved a few items or unpacked a few boxes, that it almost feels like playing house over there. It doesn’t yet feel like we will sleep there (probably also because our mattress is still here) and have breakfast there and start our workday there and look out those windows and not come back here and look out these windows anymore. (Yes, I definitely have some sort of thing with windows.)

So I just wanted to preserve a little glimpse of what this place (and its windows) were like. This might actually be the best possible season for these windows and this place: this apartment is on the ground floor, and a solid percentage of its wall surface area is actually made up of these huge, sliding glass doors. For example, my office nook has one side made up fully of window. (Unfortunately there’s a garden wall like 10 feet away, so it’s not as glorious as it could be, but still.) On these summer mornings, you can open all the windows as soon as you wake up, and the temperature is perfect. It’s warm enough that you can sit there in your just-woke-up t-shirt and PJ shorts and not be cold, but a lovely little breeze wafts in, scented with the jasmine that grows along the aforementioned garden wall. Right now, some crickets (or something?) are chirping, a lovely breeze is rustling the neighbor’s trees (there is a row of glorious trees just over the garden wall – thanks, neighbors! I’ve been loving your trees the whole time we’ve lived here!), and the sun hasn’t baked everything to a crisp, yet.

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I’m alone in the house because my partner is at work already, I’m sipping some coffee, I’m on track to get my work delivered on time, and I’m not particularly stressed. There have been many quietly lovely mornings like this in this apartment that was our refuge during the pandemic, and I think I will miss it after all.