Midtown

Loving where you live makes for a happy life, and I love living in Midtown Atlanta.

I like looking out my window at the bulky, gray stonework of the Mayfair towers … or, at night, seeing the residents of those same towers going about their lives: brushing teeth, checking the fridge, watching t.v. I like that the view to the east is a sea of puffy green treetops punctuated with street lights and apartment rooftops. I like being here on the eighth floor, where I can watch the storms roll in on a lazy Sunday afternoon: clouds, then wind, then rain.

I like walking the streets of Midtown. I’m weary of the construction between my house and The Company, and look forward to the day when the shattered sidewalks, rumbling trucks, and Road Closed signs will be a memory. At the same time, even the construction brings little miracles my way.

Last week, I watched a staggering team of fourteen Mexican laborers ferry a cracked glass panel across 12th Street to a platform above a grimy dumpster. Slowly, slowly, they began to swing their arms and shoulders: “Uno … Dos … Tres!” When they let the panel go, it didn’t launch out into space in a graceful arc; instead, its weight took it straight down into the metal mouth of the dumpster. There was a sound like God kicking in a mirror, and hundreds of glittering fragments erupted into the air like startled silver birds. The workmen whooped and whistled and pounded each other on the back.

And months ago, as I walked to work — reading my Kindle instead of watching where I was going — I stopped short when a man’s gloved palm smacked me square in the middle of my chest. I looked up. The owner of the gloved hand was a Mexican construction worker — short, stocky, with dark hair and a wide, honest face. He didn’t speak, but with his free hand, he pointed up. There, fifteen stories above our heads, dangling from a crane, was rusty metal dumpster about the size of a small school bus.

He didn’t speak. I didn’t move. The whole time we stood there, looking up into the morning sky, he kept his hand against my chest. In retrospect, the gesture was curiously intimate, but at the time, I didn’t think a thing about it. A half-minute later, when the danger was over, he removed his hand, grinned, and waved me on.

“Thanks.”

“De nada.”

I love the men who run in the Park dressed in nothing but gym shorts and running shoes, their mouths hanging open, their hair plastered against their skulls. I love the lesbian couple — servers, apparently, at some nearby restaurant — who, as they walk home every evening in their matching black outfits, hold hands. I love the sight of neighbors barbecuing at the grill out by our building’s pool … the ding of the bell when the elevator arrives … the way Lilly and Chelsea greet me at the door.

I love throwing open the door and shouting, “Hello.” I love knowing Clyde will be at the computer, or on the couch, or in the bedroom folding laundry. I love kissing him at the end of a long day, then walking together to dinner at Einstein’s or Thai on Tenth or Quattro or Joe’s.

Every single day, I am living the life I have always wanted to live, in the place I’ve dreamed of living, ever since I was nine years old.

Every single day, I’m truly, deeply grateful for it all.