the old woman & me, or, maybe barack really does bring us all together

There's an old woman who lives downstairs from me, a slightly batty old woman who tends to wear a little too much makeup and, when the weather warrants (and sometimes when the weather does not warrant), a fur coat.

I first made her acquaintance just about six years ago now, not long after we moved in to this apartment, when she ventured upstairs one morning to complain about the noise we'd been making the night before. She, gesturing rather maniacally, said she'd assumed we weighed 300 pounds, given the unendurable loudness of all the foot-stomping. She refused to hear that we'd been out the night before, that we couldn't possibly have been making the racket she claimed was so dreadful it drove her to take Xanax, and that even had we been home, we would not have been stripping the floors in the middle of the night, as she claimed.

The conversation went badly, frustrations on both sides rose to the boiling point, and eventually she left, unsatisfied. We were left confused and a bit shaken, but also with the ongoing joke that perhaps she should look into stronger medication, given the level of noise in her head and the impossibility of us being its source.

Our interactions for a long time after that were minimal at best, limited to nervous smiles and averted glances.

Over the last two years or so, though, she and I have gotten beyond the tenseness and now greet each other with genuine smiles and quiet hellos.

This past Election Day, early in the morning, we ended up not far from each other on the line to vote, as I discovered when I felt someone tugging at the sleeve of my coat. I turned around to find Meredith, in all her fur-coated glory, grinning from ear to ear and saying, "Can you believe this turnout? This is beautiful!!!"

Then two weeks ago I had a couple friends over for dinner. Around 9:30 or so there was a knocking on my door. Joe the doorman, looking rather embarrassed, explained that someone had complained about the music being too loud. He listened for a moment, rolled his eyes, said not to worry about it, and went back down to the lobby. And I didn't think much more about it.

Until I was in the grocery store last week looking for peas in the frozen food aisle. Meredith, looking anxious, came over to apologize for sending Joe up the other night. It took me a moment to even remember what she might be referring to, and I'm still not convinced that the noise she was hearing was actually emanating from my apartment. But I, in turn, apologized regardless, and suggested that she can always let me know right away if something's bothering her.

We ended up chatting for a few more minutes and, given our last interaction, I mentioned Inauguration Day. And Meredith's eyes suddenly lit up as she described her day to me. She'd spent it alone, in her apartment, channel surfing from one station to the next, tears of joy streaming down her face as she watched Barack Hussein Obama being sworn in as President of the United States. She said it was one of the best days of her life.

And I, I've been caught up in wondering at the loneliness this woman must feel from day to day, even with her cats, and have been pondering the notion of showing up at her door for a change, just to invite her up for a cup of tea.