Threads of Defiance.

A Lesson in Obedience and Conformity.

I lived in a homeowner’s association where wet towels drying on the balcony railings became the norm early on.  It was one hot summer afternoon, as I returned from work, I looked up at my building after parking my car in the lot.  There, colorful and flapping, were Ambrose and Un’iqué’s wet towels.  They clung to the eighth-floor balcony railings, the corners flipping up delicately in the breeze.  Although the colorful terry cloth towels looked pretty on an otherwise mundane beige balcony, the rules of the homeowners’ association forbade anything hanging on those railings.

But Ambrose and Un’iqué did it anyway.  Every Monday, which was wash day, their wet towels would hang until dry.  In the heat of the summer, every time the couple headed to the neighborhood pool, you could bet their beach towels would be draped across the railings after they returned to their apartment.  Over time, the towels became more than an act of defiance; they transformed into a symbol of quiet rebellion.  Neighbors began to notice Ambrose and Un’iqué’s colorful display as a sort of unspoken statement: life, with all its messiness and imperfections, could not be entirely controlled by rules and regulations.  They did it their way.

Of course, it was against the rules, by-laws, and such, but in the interest of so-called community harmony, the board of directors looked away.  It wouldn’t be nice to point out infractions, they’d say.  In reality, they broke rules, too, and it wouldn’t be right for a director on the board to be sent a friendly violation letter.

No matter that, the buildings started to look like New York City’s nineteenth century tenements.  Remember, it wasn’t all about not offending the offenders.

Soon, the monotony of the beige façades was punctuated by a patchwork of drying laundry.  Mrs. Delgado on the third floor hung out her hand-sewn quilts.  The Nguyen family draped their vibrant picnic blankets next to their toddler’s onesies.  Even creaky old Mr. Carmichael, once the staunchest enforcer of the by-laws, let his Hawaiian shirts flutter in the wind on hangers.  No one cared anymore.

The board of directors convened an emergency meeting to address what they called “The Towel Crisis.”  Yet, each time they discussed enforcement, someone brought up the sense of community the colorful fabrics had inspired.  The formerly frosty interactions between neighbors thawed, and people began smiling at each other as they passed through the hallways.

Ambrose and Un’iqué, seeing their small act ripple outward, became minor legends in the community.  And while the buildings may have resembled New York City’s old tenements, there was warmth and vibrancy to them that was cultivated that not even the strictest homeowner’s association rules could suppress.

The heck with rules!