Life Delivered

It is a well known fact about life here: you can get anything delivered to your front door at all hours of the day. In my youth, we, after an evening spent drinking, would wake up, call out for breakfast, which would arrive, miraculously, at our door in the same amount of time it would take to crack eggs, fire up the stove and get the coffee percolated. This life where things, life's necessities, gets delivered is an aspect of life I've looked forward to with relish. It's not that I'm lazy, but rather I imagine the Mt. Everest size of time saved in one's life when you don't have to spend endless hours picking up dry cleaning, picking up prescriptions, and the real time gobbler, picking up groceries.

In LA, it was a constant emotional, physical, psychological drain to start my day with three or four errands on my 'to do' list. For reasons I've never understood, I would have completed a mere two by the noon hour, at which point the sheer exhaustion of maneuvering the traffic, parking lots, and the schlepping to get these mundane tasks completed would have made me give up the remaining last two items, which would mean another day with a longer list. It was, for me, mind numbing and a part of my life I found intolerable. Once when I started my usual whining about the woes of traffic in LA, a friend, who was happily ensconced in suburban New Jersey after having fled LA--yes, people do live quite contentedly in Jersey--pointed out that life in any suburban town would mean driving around. I had to agree, but I argued that driving in suburban New Jersey would not be as nerve wracking as driving in LA. To which she agreed heartily, I might add.

This new life of having things, even of the most mundane variety, delivered to my door is enticing indeed. I've yet to call out for a delivery of toilet paper or prescription refill yet, but the lure of this possibility is still ahead. I imagine the hours left to do other more important things since all that time is now relegated to someone else doing the errand running for you. This lifestyle where anything and everything can be delivered would be perfection if one was agoraphobic or in the throes of a deep, deep depression. I used to think life in LA would be nearly impossible for those suffering from any of those afflictions where being out in the world is not possible since delivery services were spotty.

The most remarkable thing about our new existence, a life sandwiched between others, is the view I have outside my kitchen window of the Chrysler building, or rather, the pointy end of the building which looks much like an elaborate pencil. I am constantly drawn to the windows in our place, my curiosity aroused by the glimpses of life happening around me. The early evening is the most ideal for a sneak peak into other lives since lights have been turned on, the shades not completely drawn. I watch unabashedly, noticing bodies walking past windows, plants decorating window sills, people walking home from work with brief cases in hand and a bag of food in the other. These reminders of life happening in and around you in such proximity is exhilarating for me, which is contrary to the idea of the writer and the need for isolation--all true qualities. For some reason, the man made isolation of homes in LA where the the world is kept at bay with gates, walls, or shrubbery, was much more suffocating. Perhaps it was that the privacy was such a fabrication since homes were close enough to remind you of life nearby yet the boundaries so clearly defined as to keep each of us so separate.

So, I stare out our large windows, taking in the views of other buildings, wondering whether I should order our groceries for delivery today or some other day--all things to mull over in this new life.