A little noise

The men who have been making the terrible noise are still at it.

The construction on our building began in the early spring, before my husband, Peter, and I returned from Mexico. When we arrived, scaffolding had been set up all around the building and blue plastic had been taped over our windows to protect them from flying debris. Our balcony was unusable, and the driveway was blocked off, filled with piles of bricks.

And every morning at 8:00 exactly, they began to jackhammer out the bricks.

The project entailed removing rows of bricks from every side and every story of the building because water was getting in. Some sort of magic was performed beneath them (I am not an engineer, in case you were wondering) and new bricks were put in place. The loudest and longest part of this project was the removal of the bricks, but there was also grinding down of edges once the new ones were in, and some pressure washing and, throughout it all and at every stage, a tremendous amount of noise.

The building leaked. There wasn’t much we could do.

I decided early on that I could not vacate to a coffee shop every time I needed to write. I don’t like wearing earplugs, and I’m not sure they would have done much good. Instead, I wrote through the noise. If I had to talk to Peter, I would go to the room he was in and stand close to him, because inter-room hollering was no longer possible (which might have been one small ancillary benefit of the façade repair).

They were all guys, and they were all quite large. Hammering out bricks and replacing them with more bricks while on a narrow platform high in the air is serious work. These guys did it five days a week from 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, taking only a half-hour off for lunch.

I always said “hello.” They always apologized for all the noise – as if there was anything they could do about it. Sometimes I would thank them for the wake-up call. They always laughed and thanked me for being a good sport.

“We should get them snacks to thank them for their hard work,” Peter said.

Peter believes every hardworking person deserves snacks. It is one of the many things I love about him. So I went to the bakery, and I bought a bunch of bars – brownies and lemon bars and Rice Krispies bars and pumpkin – and Peter and I delivered them one day when they took their short lunch break.

“I want a souvenir!” I told the foreman.

“What kind of souvenir?” he asked.

“I want a brick!”

“We’ve got bricks everywhere!” He laughed.

“Yes, but I want a signed brick. I want your autographs.”

“Why would you want that?” he asked.

“I want it to remember this summer of noise!”

They all laughed, and just when we were getting ready to return to Mexico (which we usually think of as the noisier of our two homes), Peter said, “There’s something for you outside the door.”

And, of course, it was my brick, with everyone’s name written on it. I was so pleased.

It reminds me of those hardworking guys outside my window, hanging off the side of the building day after day. It reminds me that, whatever hard work I think I am doing, there are much harder jobs out there. Sitting at my computer, putting up with a little noise, it reminds me that I have it pretty good.

Till next time,

Carrie