The Ritualistic Mating Call of the Architect

There’s an architecture firm around the corner. I pass it on my almost-daily morning trudge (lately through snow and ice) to buy my diet coke. The building is something of an oddity in the Covington riverside district, because it isn’t historic. It’s a modern structure, encased in black-tinted glass.

Every once in a while when I walk by the building, I’ll hear a frantic knocking on the glass. Since the glass is black, I can’t see in to know what the fuss is about. Is this the ritualistic mating call of the architect? Or just a spunky intern? It’s a mystery, but it strikes my funny bone every time I walk down the street.

And strangely, it makes me feel like a little kid again. I am tempted, when I walk past my dark reflection, to turn a cartwheel. To do a little quick-step with some hot jazz hands. And, inevitably, to do an improvised snow angel, flush against the glass while sticking out my tongue. Weird, right?

Maybe it is strange. But how many opportunities do you have after the age of 12 to act like a little kid? And when I was 12, I wanted nothing more than to be an adult.

When I was in Oregon at Christmas, my niece and I talked about her angst-filled adolescence. She wants what all kids want, to be grown-up and on her own. I tried to explain that it all passes in a blink. That 20 years from now, she’ll want nothing more than freedom from bills, societal pressures and the general stress of trying to get by. Actually, I summed up her impending adulthood thusly: “It’s all just bills.”

But I know how she feels.

Like most little girls, I experimented with wearing make-up and high heels and other “adult” trappings, desperately wishing to be a grown-up. If I knew then that one day, I’d want nothing more than the freedom to be a little kid again, I would have taken each day a little more slowly, and savored my independence.

Chances are, the knocking on the glass at the architecture company comes from some part-time employee or off-hours member of staff. It hasn’t happened often, and I’m sure the regular, full-time employees are far too busy (and adult) to notice the curious passer-by.

I may never know who’s on the other side of the glass. But it always makes me smile.