Behind the next window

It has become a ritual unconsciously. Just before the light goes out in Beertje's bedroom, I carry him downstairs in my arms one floor...that one moment I still carry him in my arms and we cling to each other cheek to cheek.  While he uses the bathroom a last time before the night,  I look out of the window. 

I see the backs of some houses in the other street.  Some houses have some random lights on or off.  Yet others have become familiar and my eyes seek out. 

As always I see in the house with the recent new kitchen extension with wide windows, the man and or the woman cleaning up a bit in the kitchen.  The counter gets wiped, some pots are put in the dishwasher,  there's a conversation at the kitchen island. In summer, they were sitting at the terrace.   The house next up has the light on at the 2nd floor.  As usual there is a silhouette near the window and I see a faucet. Some days I could spot some pots in an open cupboard, so I assume this is a shared (??) kitchen in a student house. After all, the light in this room often stays on at ridiculous hours.  I had noticed that before, when I was still rocking my babies back to sleep with a lot of desperation in the middle of some nights.  I can put a bet that someone is busy in this kitchen after 8 PM, either cooking or cleaning up. 

It feels comforting to see each one's routines and merge them all into ours.   Beertje looks through the window with me. He still doesn't understand people are still cooking at bedtime. He thinks those are strange people.  I don't argue with him and agree these are strange people eating when it's bedtime, and then I pick him up again into my arms to carry him into his bed for a last big hug before I turn off his light. 

One of the recent nights the huge garden level kitchen was pitch black. All of a sudden I felt a bit lonely and left behind by the others.  What exciting stuff was happening in their life that resulted them in not being home at 8 PM?  In 2021 that feels weird.   It's weird that I spotted it mostly.

Since the start of the lockdown in spring 2020 I became very much aware of what is behind all the other windows. I never gave it much thought before, but now we were hunting for bears and often you glanced and all of a sudden spotted the people behind the window inside.  There were people behind almost each window in Spring.  We were all in this together, everybody was at home.  The mindset in spring was "stay at home" mostly, so you saw the people behind each facade.   In the meantime focus seems to have shifted to "keep doing things but do them outside and with distance" so we are all more mobile and more outside.  It's busier in parks and streets again. Nevertheless I still spot so many laptops or improvised desks near a bed or living room table when walking the kids from and to school.  And I recognize the home working or home studying, the staying in touch digitally, the living behind a screen in the room we live in.  And so we all share the same routines behind the next window.