I have loved snooping for as long as I can remember. As a child, I relished any occasion that would let me wander around unnoticed, poking and prodding at things (I was an otherwise well-behaved middle child, so that happened a lot).
Abuelas’ houses were prime territory. So many tchotchkes! Fridges loaded with flashy clay magnets from friends’ and family’s trips to various (mostly Caribbean) destinations. Drawers full of tinctures, ointments, miniature chocolate bars, and — my favorite — miscellaneous notes. Once, I found a mash note written on the back of a photo from the 80s. I couldn’t wait for the weekend, to be face-to-face with the makeup drawers. Puffs of gardenia-scented setting powders drifting up into my nose as I marveled at the array of lipstick tubes, and multicolored compacts.
I remember when I discovered a jar one of my grandmothers had bought at the pharmacy or some department-store makeup counter. I twisted the lid and, to my delight, found the container was full of glistening pearls. Upon further inspection, these plastic pearls were actually pods filled with some dubious anti-aging serum, meant to be squirted out onto sagging cheeks and chins. My God! Is there anything that makes a young child salivate more than an orb full of liquid (Tide Pods, Gushers, breasts)?
My interest in these not-so-secret possessions continued as I got older. I started learning boundaries, what is not meant to be inspected — a process informed mostly by the few times family members read my diary without my consent (different newsletter). But I also realized how revealing even our public sides can be, how I could snoop — and get the thrill of it — without really trying. Everyone sitting next to me at a restaurant is subject to my eavesdropping. Sometimes the conversations delight me. At a Chinese restaurant, I heard a tale from a woman whose sister was allegedly visited by the same coyote on her birthday every year (“July 19, we’d hear, ‘reh, reh, reh’ and go outside and see all these little eyes staring at us”). At a restaurant with outdoor seating, a man asked his tablemate, “Can I trade spots with you? You’re under the Canadian palm tree,” referring to the heater.
I love airports for the way they reveal a million tiny expressions. What is a person wearing to fly? What shoes? What is their bag situation? Are they ill-prepared for the elaborate removal-of-things at the security checkpoint? Did they bring their own snacks (and are they hard-boiled eggs)? How aggressive are they when it comes time to board the plane, despite knowing we will all make it onto this plane?
There’s more: I love a concert or sports venue with a see-through bag policy, like an absolute freak. My favorite part of driving through a new city is looking up into people’s windowsills to see what’s there, what’s been aesthetically placed or mindlessly tossed there. I wish I worked at a flower shop just so I could investigate the various passionate, apathetic, reconciliatory and passive-aggressive notes people request with their bouquets.
Books fulfill that strange need, too — especially diaries published after an author’s death, like “The Diaries of Anaïs Nin” (a series I admittedly have not finished, by a person who was deeply flawed and probably traumatized).
And then there is nature. You might think, “Isa, surely you’re not about to compare the plight of pigeons to the deeply complex human experience…” To which I say, maybe I am! Have you seen “Prehistoric Planet”? The mascot of this newsletter is Beelzebufo.
Over the summer, after I moved into a new apartment here in L.A., I immediately started thinking of the birds. My last place in Boston was a creaky third-floor apartment in an old house (as most places in Boston are). The house next door, home to a group of rowdy frat boys, was so close I had to close my window shade every night to avoid making eye contact with one of them while they showered. One night, I was up late working and forgot, until I saw rapid movements out of my periphery. One of the boys was doing high-kicks and jabbing the air in the shower. That was not the kind of windowsill action I wanted to observe.
Honestly, I did not like living there. But a major redeeming quality was these round, gray birds — don’t ask me the species or whatever — that would sit on the frat boy house every morning. I’d wake up, open the curtain, and see these adorable little chirpy, bulbous creatures, and I felt better.
Now, California birds are, I think, direct descendants of Beelzebufo. The crows specifically are enormous, the size of cats. And yet… After weeks of failing to attract small, docile birds to a window feeder, I told my partner: “I’m going to build a murder of crows.”
If you don’t know, crows, ravens and other corvids – okay, maybe I do know a thing or two about bird species – are extremely smart. They can recognize human faces, build tools, leave gifts, exact revenge and even have been found to possess a sense of self. Are you fucking kidding me? Of course I want a gang of crows so loyal they’ll destroy the yards of my enemies. So I set out some peanuts (crows love peanuts) on the sidewalk next to our apartment, and waited.
It became a joke in our house, because I was constantly checking the status of the peanuts, scanning the horizon for flying cats. Then, one morning, the peanuts were gone. That night, I set out more, and a Tupperware of water. In the morning, they were gone again. According to my short-lived “bird log” (a tiny notebook with dates and observations scrawled with a golf pencil), some crows started appearing in the grass next door during the day. I referred to them affectionately as “my boys,” and insisted every night before bed that I “had to put out some nuts for my boys.”
The truth is that I have no idea whether my peanut-eaters were crows. There’s a chance. But it was the fun of observation, and feeling a connection to my tangible surroundings, to nuts on a hot sidewalk, that filled some part of me. That’s what I’m hoping to get out of (and get at with) rummaging.
There’s no real reason for me to start a newsletter, other than that I miss writing for fun. And if we’re always going to be rolling stuff around in our minds, we might as well examine the dust bunnies that have accumulated in the corners. Maybe you’ll be compelled to rummage with me. And maybe rummaging through these odds and ends will stoke our curiosity about tiny joys to be found in the analog world.
Rummaging is written by Isa Cueto and edited by Annie Cappetta.