I live in an old factory consisting of four separate buildings arranged in a massive square fortress with a large tree-lined courtyard in the center. The courtyard encloses a lawn that provides a protected zone for small children to romp safely in, and this has become a powerful magnet for a well-to-do class of young families who've been moving out here and who now regard this building as their proper domicile. When I bought my one-bedroom unit several years ago, the residents were mostly teachers and the courtyard was quiet, but now the building has been taken over by all these young couples whose families forked over the vastly higher asking prices and whose children play constantly in the courtyard.
I feel as though I'm living in a giant nursery. On weekdays, while the parents are away at legal and financial jobs in the city, dark-skinned nannies sit sternly on the courtyard benches watching over their unruly urchins. Returning in the afternoons, the parents change into informal clothes and gather in chatty cliques on the lawn beneath my upstairs window. The proud fathers roll in the grass with their babies while the mothers look on and mingle happily with other parents. It's a family scene, an unusually social setting for a residential building. (I often hear the word "community" and see it posted in the entrance hallway.)
Weekends are pandemonium. The courtyard is in a continuous uproar, like a public playground. It's a rare moment when I can't hear the excited screams of happy children, a pleasant cacophony that echoes off the courtyard walls and overwhelms my solitude. I wade through swarms of charming toddlers on my way out to the street and on my return home from handyman jobs and grocery errands. On weekends I hold open the exterior door for the endless parade of young mothers with strollers, bowing my head in silent obligation and with no expectation of gratitude, for I'm an outsider here now. A childless and solitary man is a pariah in the nursery, a social anomaly who's obliged to demonstrate unnatural devotion to all these adorable little creatures who are already overindulged and whose tiny hands yet grasp for the reins of the world.
