Points of View (Thursday Doors)

my relationship
with my indoor plants varies–
it always depends

I can’t figure it
out—some thrive, some don’t–some will
not commit themselves

I envy back yards,
roof decks, terraces—subject
to the weather’s whims

the burden of care
is shared–along with a sun
for lazy basking

The view out my front windows is of roofs. I’m on the 8th floor and across the street are a row of brownstones. Some of them have roof gardens. Before this year, I never saw anyone using most of them, but for some reason their current residents have spruced them up and are often outside.

I admit I’m envious. Some larger building have roof decks–I lived in one briefly–but mine does not.

This one used to look particularly sad, but it now has lights and plants and is in constant use. It’s a rental building, with a terrace on the back side that belongs to a different apartment. Both have tiny one bedrooms on the floor below, with a staircase to the roof.

This is a private house which may or may not rent out a garden apartment–I couldn’t really tell from what I found out online. It last sold in 2016 for 8 million dollars, and looks like it was completely renovated at that time. I guess that’s why it looks like the fanciest of the three.

Another rental building, which also appears to have a terrace at the back. I couldn’t find any floor plans but it supposedly has 10 units, so the back may also belong to a different apartment.

Looking out the window the other direction is a deck that gets used all the time. It has a flat screen TV on the wall for evening viewing. They haven’t had much chance to use it yet this year, but maybe the rain will stop soon. This brownstone is a co-op. There’s a 2 bedroom apartment on the floor below, and the apartment with its deck last sold for $1,700,000 in 2020. I had always thought it was a communal deck used by the entire building, so that was an interesting thing to discover.

I chose to focus on rooftops this week because Dan Antion, who hosts Thursday Doors, also hosts a weekly photo prompt, and this week’s theme is Photos taken from above.

My poem is for Selma’s Tanka Tuesday Prompt this week to write a rensaku about relationships.

And a couple more views from above for CFFC, taken from the second row from the top of the stadium.

We went to Pride Night last week at Citi Field. Mr. and Mrs. Met were of course in attendance. The Mets lost (something they seem to be doing with regularity lately), but the place was packed and everyone had a great time, singing and dancing at the slightest provocation. Long after Francisco Lindor stepped up to the plate, the entire stadium was still singing “My Girl”.