Hope and Joy: colourful neighbours with boots and trucks, but could there be more?

The apartment block was one of those red-brick walk-ups, with the wooden fire escape steps and landings up the back outside wall. Units facing front looked out over the street, those facing back had the view of the alley. Neither position was particularly favourable — noise was ever-present, though the front view did include patches of scrappy grass and a couple of flowerbeds that persisted even in the face of neglect, the hostas and bleeding hearts unimaginative but reliable.

In unit 4-A lived Hope. She had been there a long time, ever present like the noise but quieter, more elusive than the traffic and the stray cats. Nonetheless, she was the anchor of the block, older than most other residents, “seasoned” is how she described herself, and easily identifiable by her perennial purple boots and red sweater. “Make a statement — or make me a better offer,” she liked to joke with a wink to anyone who commented on her style. Knocking people off their rock-solid assumptions was, maybe, Hope’s favourite pastime.

When Joy moved into the ground-floor unit that had long been vacant, everyone noticed, even the old guy in 3-C who walked through life at a steady pace, never changing his routine of a morning walk down the block, then a sit the length of a cigarette on the front stoop, then back to his apartment until the next day. What he did in there no-one knew. He was a presence in the building, but he kept himself to himself, maybe giving a nod when he passed someone inside or out, maybe not.

That early spring day, Joy arrived in her yellow truck, screeching into a parking spot in front of the building, then tossing boxes and suitcases onto the sidewalk, all the while humming a jaunty tune to herself. When she had finished tossing items from her truck, she jumped down with ease and propped open the apartment building’s front door with the rock clearly intended for that purpose, then moved those boxes and suitcases into unit 1-B, and closed the door.

Over the next weeks that turned into months, the building carried on, steady, holding the tenants within its walls, giving them both space and safety to live their lives. It knew it wasn’t much, but it was enough. In a world gone mad with power-drunk billionaires fantasizing about moving humans onto the moon, this little bit of earth-bound real estate was plain, solid, and dependable. People called it home; that was pleasing. What they did with each other was their business — living apart or together, whatever worked, it was up to them.

What Hope could not figure out was why a woman who owned a bright yellow truck, wore orange Doc Marten boots, and seemed to have a penchant for paisley patterned scarves — a woman so colourful in so many ways, why she kept so decidedly to herself. What a contradiction she seemed.

One Thursday morning in late summer, the old guy was on the front stoop having completed his ritual walk, his cigarette not yet at the halfway point, when Joy came down the block with a bag of groceries in hand. Instead of pushing past the old guy to enter the building, she stopped a moment, as if ready for conversation of some kind, maybe mere pleasantries about the weather or maybe something more substantial, but he did not look up from his spot on the stoop, so Joy continued into the building and into her apartment, closing the door behind her. Connection had been possible, but did not happen.

And so it went. Hope kept very different hours from Joy, so they rarely crossed paths. When Joy moved out of the building as autumn turned to winter, she did so the same way she had arrived: on her own, swiftly, and humming that same tune, which might have been Neil Diamond’s 'Sweet Caroline'.

Hope was sorry to see her go. Joy had been a colourful force of energy in the building, even if rarely seen and never spoken to. The old guy felt the same, but was so set in his ways that her departure couldn’t knock the rhythm out of his routine. He just kept going. Hope did, too, but every time she walked by unit 1-B she wondered where Joy had moved on to. And why.

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This tiny tale of Hope and Joy and the old guy was inspired by a quote recently shared with me: “Joy must be invited.” Thanks to Morris Bay for the words, and to James Hargrove for sending them to me.

A while back, I wrote about Hope with her purple boots and red sweater; you can read that piece here. 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.