Night crew
I lie alone in our bedroom, walls illuminated orange from a camping lantern, while we wait for power. My husband is enamored with rechargeable camping gear. It brings him great joy to have solutions to inconveniences at the ready.
Bedroom windows open in the stillness of a June evening, I listen to the utility crew out front repair the faulty electrical pole near our Grandfather Sycamore tree.
The day was large in how much it held, the year too when I think about how much the body can accomplish. My second child is now ten months grown. We’ve done the recalibration of three people to four. We understand what it takes to succeed in these new nighttime routines, how putting one to bed means we don’t get to tend to the other. Like so many families, it’s me with the baby, him with our older son. We know we’ll get back to steadier shared spaces eventually.
—
The engine of the utility crew’s bus-sized truck whirrs the street alive as bath-clean children around the neighborhood drift to sleep. Everyone’s home from work. Cars are parked in driveways. Dinners have been eaten. A power drill purrs. It is orange outside too, the last moments of sun coloring the first glimpses of night with mischievous personality.
Voices echo, “Ho! Stop.” Another power drill hum. Laughter. And music. From the crew’s truck plays “Summertime” by Sublime in the windlessness of the evening, the air so soft and still I could disappear.
Summer taaaaime, when the livin’s ease-ee undercuts the industrial buzz of the bucket pole ascending to the naval height of the Sycamore. It beep-beep-beeps a cautionary melody, signaling to those in close proximity to be aware.
My two sons reach deeper sleep, their heads heavying and breath slowing. My work for the evening is done. There is nothing left to do. And so I continue to listen to the crew’s playlist as quiet attendee. Not show director. Not captain. Not manager of people and things. Just around, delightfully blending into the background as I adjust my position atop our bedspread. It’s the type of warm night where we’re likely to sleep with only a sheet.
A worker shouts “A broken hat” to another.
“What?”
“A broken hat,” presumably holding it up.
Tom Petty plays next. The truck speakers blare: You don’t know how it fee-eels, no you don’t know how it fee-eels...
He sings to me in this secret space between workday-weekday and next workday-weekday, with an invitation to melt, sink.
The camping lantern rests next to a pile of unread books, casting angular shadows through their edges onto the far wall. Time passes. I don’t know how long. I am 100 percent here.
I am hidden witness to the crew’s night work. I am the observer they don’t know is there. I savor this secret, and I think, based on their music choices, we’d be friends, the crew and I. There was a time when I sought these small connections everywhere. Now, my world is less out there, more in here. The center has shifted.
Now back to Sublime. It plays: I reeeeally want to know, my babyyyy. Santeria. Sacred ode for those of us who grew up looking for answers in ordinary places. I close my eyes and drift. And I’m more inside my home than I’ve ever been. Not rushing. Not searching. Just threading into bed and walls like I’m the strongest part of the home’s foundation. Maybe I am.
—
My husband walks past our bedroom door, hears me singing along to Santeria, and casts me an inquisitive glance as he fetches a carton of orange juice from the fridge. He’s wearing nylon basketball shorts and a tank top. I’ve never known him to own actual pajamas.
“What are you doing in there?”
“Shhh, come here. Lie right here.” I pat his side of the bed.
He puts down the carton of juice on the kitchen island, joins me. And the workers continue their mechanical symphony of churrs and wahhs layered with recognizable radio melodies. They are none the wiser of their now-pair of voyeur customers as they continue their utility artistry.
“Listen,” I whisper.
My husband watches the ceiling as if examining its plaster will help him hear better. He is waiting for something obvious – a boom, a bang.
“What am I listening for?” he asks.
I tap my ear lobe, pause. “Their music. It’s so good.”
I reeally want to know, my baby…
My husband humors me for a moment longer. His eyes wander to the camping lantern.
Hands folded across his chest, he turns to me: “You know, you can adjust the light mode settings on the lantern. It’s on ‘warm glow’.”
“Yes, love it,” I say, glad we have his gadget tonight, though usually less amused by gear settings and multi-functions.
We get texts saying power will be restored in the early hours of the morning. The text message misspells our street name. There’s really a person on the other side.
I want to tell the night crew they are welcome here on our street tonight, that they’ve added to the neighborhood, that maybe there are many other neighbors like me all listening in quietly as the music floats in through their bedroom windows.
The morning alarm will replace the music soon. We’ll turn the corner into tomorrow.
And I’ll wait for the next evening that asks nothing of us except to slow, relax, and attune.