March 2 2021. And repeat.
March 2 2021. A typical winter evening in northern California, the sky occluded with clouds, spreading grayish tones that hid the last sun beams of the day. Following my beat, I was biking along the bicycle boulevard on my way to downtown. There were people on the streets, leaving their places of solitude. Joggers running on the road, some with mask, with steam bursts flowing through the mesh with each breath. A few stares, here and there, masks covering half their faces. Cars would pop up at intersections, slouching their way through the suburbs. I had my mind somewhere else, observing lazily the houses and sidewalks on both sides of the street.
On the driveway of one house, nothing outstanding in it from the neighbors, there was a young guy in his 20s, sitting in one of those fruit crates that you can find in places like Costco. A gray crate, and him wearing black baggy pants and a gray hoodie that mixed itself with the grayness of the weather. There was a small laptop resting on his legs, his fingers avidly walking across the keyboard. “Some sort of programmer” — my mind quickly raced to that statement. And if he was not hunching over code, then he would be most likely dealing with Excel sheets. That is the rule of this area. Based on his outfit, I leaned more to the coder hypothesis, unless the pandemic dressing code turned stereotypes upside down. His back was arched towards the laptop. Any of the ergonomic training courses they make you take say that is not a healthy posture. Most of us are now experts in reciting this knowledge, even if some (most) do not apply it.
Why was the gray hooded guy sitting outside, on a food crate, completely exposed to the cold and to my judgement, and without a power outlet or portable charger in sight? I left my thoughts go back to the road ahead, plunging that guy into the back of my mind. Later, back at home, and somewhat bored, he and the driveway come back. What was we doing and what were his motivations? I tried to picture different reasons for his existence. After all, to me, he was only a guy sitting on a crane, curved over a laptop on top of his legs. I could fill the rest of his existence as well as I pleased.
Maybe he is the guardian of hygge, the one that will combat any attempt to bring inside any unwarranted concerns from his job. He will endure the discomfort and the staring from strangers to keep his place unviolated, a temple to the goddess of coziness, a warm womb to where he returns every day. The work, therefore, knows its place. It’s like a dog that needs to be trained to be aware of boundaries. To know when to send the last email and notification, and when to expect a reply.
Or, perhaps, he is a stoic, detached from mundane discomforts that enslave the masses. He sees clearer and from his perspective, we are the sufferers, unable to attain his understanding of the world. We, the passersby, move around, carrying on our simple lives as he stays firmly there, always.
It might be even that, on a completely different angle, he is escaping from something, or someone, inside. The moments in the driveway serve as reprieve from his confinement now exacerbated. He is trapped in this perpetual cycle, longing for a return to normalcy. What lurks inside his place and consumes his mind? Perhaps a steadily increasing mountain of bills to pay; an eviction notice from the landlord; one or more kids ready to pump out all their energy; bad roommates that make him consider living solo (some tabs with vacant studios remain open on his browser in the background); the old plumbing needs to be overhauled.
There is an endless list of possibilities, each with their own quirks that can branch into an explosion of combinatorial chaos. A daunting task that grew stronger than my dullness. I looked for a brief instant towards the backyard lost to the night. The light in the bedroom created a dark reflection of myself in the window. ‘Maybe he was just as bored as I am. Tired of this pandemic loop we live in. Just trying to bring some change to his life.’
