Pink Shorts or a Letter to a Neighbor

Dear neighbor, 

I don't know your name, age, gender, occupation, but I do know that you are a special person. You must be... What you did the other day got eternally stamped in my memory and made me remember that creativity doesn't need invitations, that magic moments are made out of small acts and these small acts can make the person want to pay it forward and before you know it, you might be in charge of creating a whole community of  "wannabe better, kinder" people. Sounds big, doesn't it?! I don't want to throw big words, I can't really, especially when I'm emotional and I am emotional at the moment. I just want you to know that I'm always going to be grateful for making this one of the best stories/memories of my life. 

I'm very much looking forwards to meeting you in person. 

Sincerely, 

Lia

(apt. 44)  

~The Story~

The past few days have been the most stressful, vulnerable, emotionally draining days of my life. My father has undergone a serious surgery and I've come to realize that I'm an immensely emotional being.  All these days I've been trying to have myself pulled together, force a smile of my face, distract myself with work and family duties, think positively but all I could do was to cry every minute I thought about it. But this is not what this story is about, the story is about my neighbor from upstairs whom I've never met and who has managed to put a permanent smile on my face.

A few days ago, I was hanging the laundry outside and accidentally dropped my daughter's shorts to the outer side of our balcony. I tried to get it with a stick, then a hook, then some handmade devices that I thought would be helpful but in vain. Since nothing worked I could either leave it there or maybe drop it down on the ground, go downstairs and pick it up, which I did, but apparently I tried too hard and my daughters little shorts ended up getting caught up on the electrical wires or some sort of wires on the height of the second floor which was unreachable to get. "OK, well.. forget it" I thought to myself and moved on. 

For the coming few days I observed Mia's shorts just hanging there in the same position, which is also a testimony to hot and windless the summer Yerevan was and then I just forgot about it. 

Few days later...

I come home after one of these consequent long and stressful days, go out to a balcony for a breath of fresh air and see a rope hanging from the balcony of the floor above with Mia's shorts tied up on it. 

This is the part of the story where the permanent smile kicked in.

I couldn't believe my eyes. I couldn't believe that somebody would actually be so creative as to leave a "package" hanging on a rope just like that rather than passing it in a normal -  walking 22 steps down, knock-knock, thank you - thank you, bye-bye - kind of way. I was in such a positive shock that for a moment I started doubting the creativity element of the whole story and thought more rationally. "He/she has probably sent it to us this way just because he/she knows that our being-at-home time schedules probably don't match, so he/she has just put it there for us to pick it up whenever we see it" That thought made total sense to me and I stuck to that for few minutes. 

I was still so touched by this act and I really wanted to let him/her know how appreciative I was for such a sweet act so instead of walking 22 steps up, knocking at the door and saying it to him/her I decided to act the same way back. I tied up a chocolate bar to my end of the rope and left it there hanging thinking that hopefully he/she will have it once at home. 

And then the magic happened... the rope started pulling back and few moments later the chocolate was gone leaving me in a completely awe and shock and happiness and a thought that there was nothing rational about it, but total creativity and adventurous sweetness.

I wanted to run upstairs, introduce myself, scream, hug or whatever, but then I though that I didn't want to spoil the moment... and I still have not... I guess I still don't want to spoil something, I don't even know what. 

To be continued...