I miss living in an apartment.

Not some things about it, of course. The lack of privacy, the trying to be quiet or having to listen to other tenants, the price of utilities (especially these days!), misdelivered mail, the list goes on and on. But living nearly exclusively on the second floor, it's almost like living in a treehouse. Of course, this is if you have trees in the yard.

I really loved that about the apartment in Taftville. The back windows dropped to an alley of a backyard, then that dropped another 12 feet or so to the street below. There were more mill houses on the other side of that street, which all had alley-like backyards that then dropped yet another 12 feet to the main thoroughfare. Across from these two terraces of mill houses, was nothing but a wooded waste, probably one of the furthest-back territories of the old Thermos plant which had gone out of business when I was a kid.

These trees weren't anything special, and in fact weren't very tall. I'm sure they were just recent growth from the last 20 years or so. Among them were tons of vines. It was a beautiful, green wall that rippled and whispered and sang in the night wind that came along and chased down the main road at the bottom of our terraces.

In the front yard, mere inches from the kitchen and dining windows, were the greatest old oaks you've ever seen. They had to be at least two hundred years old. When that same night wind was chasing down the main road, it also visited the road out front, which butted up against yet another 12 foot wall. Above that was a sylvan wild hill, the steepness of which I'd only been eager to climb when I was a child.

The oaks out front danced and stretched in the night wind, shaking their leaves and letting loose any dead limbs. The cars were safely outside their reach. To have the windows open on both sides, front and back, to hear the wind breathing through the leaves, and be surrounded by it, was something just completely magical. Safe in a brick house, with wind tunnels blowing just outside my windows... I loved it.

I think of that apartment fondly now, mostly because of those trees. Sometimes I wish I could live in a second-floor apartment again. I miss the feeling of being up off the ground, tall as the trees, listening to the night wind, and watching the squirrels' frenzied runs up and down the trunks on a sun-dappled day. I even kind of miss having to go to the laundromat. It forced me to be just a little bit social, even if I did bury my nose in a book most of the time.

I don't miss the inconsiderate downstairs tenant who'd play loud music all day and all night, and who continually filled my trash can before I ever got to throw anything out for the week. I don't miss the stinky gas heater, or the teeny linen cupboard in the bathroom, or the separated Hot and Cold faucets. I don't miss having to hang clothes all over the place to dry after going to the laundromat because I had to bring them back damp. I don't miss the carpenter ants in the kitchen, or the moldy state of the kitchen sink right before I moved out. I certainly don't miss the toaster oven that browned out the power every time we used it.

But there were advantages, especially on a fall night with the scent of mouldering leaves on the air, the wind pirouetting through the last dry leaves...