By Maeve Fitzgerald

Welcome back to the art of noticing, the blog where a 20-something year old girl romanticizes the subsequent details within our everyday lives. Today, I’d love to write to you about rooftops. Yes. Roofs. 

I live in an all too small apartment with my roommate of four years. We live in Boston’s North End, the little Italy of the city, tucked by the water, right outside of downtown. 

When we were apartment hunting in the spring of 2024, we were studying abroad in Madrid, Spain. To nobody’s surprise other than ours, it is relatively difficult to find an apartment in a different country and time zone for a move five months into the future. So, when we got home from our semester, we signed the lease for the first available two bedroom in the North End. The thing that sold our signatures? We’d have a rooftop.

A year and some change into living here, my rooftop is where I spend a large portion of my time at home. My bedroom is, for lack of better term, petite. It has one window that faces a brick apartment building, and my queen bed takes up three quarters of my space. While very cozy, it’s quaint. 

Such confinement creates a desire for horizon. When I’m on my roof, all falls quiet in the vastness of the city. The moon’s shimmer glistens my cheeks as the city lights wink at me from their respective windows, the lives of others being lived in each glass window. 

 There’s this term I love: sonder. Sonder is the concept that every person who you pass, you glance at, is living an equally deep, complex and dynamic life as your own. Everyone has their own goals, worries, interests, hobbies and favorite meals. No two lives are the same, and they never will be. 

When I’m on my rooftop, I can see it all. Some windows are dressed with potted plants sprawled about on the windowsill. The vines drape over the pots, the soil crumbled and speckled. Some pots are painted by hand, small green leaves and ladybugs carefully crafted. Others are store bought, seemingly a pair with the plant itself. 

Other windows gleam into living rooms, some with the television in perfect view. I am no stalker or peeper, but I will say if South Park is on the television, well you’ve got another viewer. 

My rooftop has held hands with some of my favorite college memories so far. It is home to our portable camping grill, where we spent all summer cooking hot dogs on late, hot summer afternoons and sipping on cold hard ciders with our best friends. It’s where I ended a twelve hour long first date with a bottle of wine on the roof, listening to music. It’s where we pregamed our first Halloween house party and where I met one of my now best friends, Michael. It is where I have cried it out after a stressful week, where I’ve read numerous novels and where I’ve happily accepted many sunburns. 

The amount of nights spent on my rooftop have been beyond a numerical value. My rooftop is simply a sanctuary. 

What we must notice here, is the place that you go to recognize that the world is larger than you. Where you find perspective. Where you are grounded, no matter if that is six stories in the air. 

When I am on my rooftop, there is an understanding that life is larger than what I am battling. Every window of the city that I can see contains a different story, a different set of humans with complex, individual and enchanting minds. I am not the only one who struggles, and neither are you. These third spaces, these places of refuge, relaxation and recognition are where we find solace. Just because all may feel heavy now, does not mean that it will always weigh so heavily. 

The next time you are in your third space, whether that be the coffee shop you and your friends enjoy, a local pub, the library– whatever it may be– I implore you to take a quick look around. Recognize that there are more people around you than just yourself. They, too, struggle. They have hobbies, passions, pet peeves, motivators and loved ones. Find your rooftop, look at the city and understand that you are never alone. You can’t sleep? Someone else’s light is on. You’re grilling for your friends? So are the people five rooftops over. 

We’re all human, getting by in our own little glass rectangles. Mine might face a brick apartment building, but it’s the eyes of my room. The window to my soul.