This past weekend was a strange one. Emi visited armed with window alarms because on Friday someone managed to climb onto the low roof which is flush with my apartment, and tried to enter my kitchen window. It happened this way: I heard a noise in the kitchen and then saw the shadow of someone’s raised arms fiddling with the kitchen window. He was noisy; I was noisy. He fled fast. Not long after that I saw someone from another window looking my way. He ran from the roof with great gusto when he saw me. Then, while sitting in front of my computer, I casually looked out of the window facing me and saw someone standing about four yards away looking terribly confused. I didn’t think much about it then, just that perhaps he was a worker waiting for someone. Had I been more in tune, the confused state he was in would have said otherwise. And never is there anyone on that roof. After checking at the realty office in the next building to inquire whether anything strange was happening in their space, I called the police. A police car came and the officer reassured me that they’d keep an eye on things this weekend. In the meantime, Emi installed the window alarms on Friday, and on Saturday we bought more.
Then came Sunday. As we walked along the street returning from the market we couldn’t help noticing two fire trucks, three police cars and an ambulance parked across the street from where I live. At that point, we couldn’t see my building. People were gathered outside wondering and waiting. We wondered also, and walking round the corner, saw that the building was intact. I took my key and we entered. Two officers, one female one male, were descending the stairs. I asked what happened. They looked sweaty, serious, and in no mood to answer questions. They said it was a private matter. Hmm!
Not knowing what was happening, we waited. When everything was calm, and everyone left, we knocked on the door of the apartment in question. After quite a bit of knocking, a woman answered. We were still under the impression that they’d want to know about Friday’s intruder as we still thought there was a connection between then and now. But as it turned out, the situation was entirely different. As the police said, it was a private matter. The woman was nice, but too distraught to have a conversation. It seems a cousin rents the apartment and the woman’s son was visiting and had a nervous breakdown. He wouldn’t allow anyone to approach him-not his mother, not the police. The kindest thing we could do was to give the mother some privacy. We quietly left.
Sometimes there’s a swirl of activity all around us. It doesn’t mean we’re necessarily a part of it. Perhaps on those occasions, we’re meant to observe, nothing more. That’s the way I feel about this past weekend. Thinking too deeply about it would deplete precious energy.