While listening to my current book (Under the Dome by Stephen King, as it happens), I glanced out my living room window, and it struck me what an important role windows have always played for me. I’m not sure when I became conscious of the lure of looking out of windows, but I remember doing so when I was in 5th grade, and supposed to be asleep. I couldn’t see anything but a dark lawn and the line of darker trees beyond where I knew the road was, and even with the window open, I could only hear crickets and the sound of an occasional car, but the view from that window held me like a magnet holding an iron filing.
In many ways, I associate the view from favorite windows with each house or apartment in which I’ve lived. Sometimes it is those views, interesting or not, that I remember, more than the place itself, or the way I furnished it. In one house, for example, there was a tree across the street that, in Autumn would turn into a spectacular display of golden leaves. It stood alone in the yard, and because of that, it drew the eye to it, immediately.
I wonder what it is that I find so appealing. Is it the fantasy that, from behind the safety of window glass, and protected by my walls, I can quietly spy on the world? Never mind the fact that if I can look out, anyone could look up and see me.
Is it the fact that, like a painting in an art museum, I am looking at a framed “landscape”, even if it’s a suburban street or (as now) a little piece of a city scape? Perhaps it’s just that, by looking outside, seeing what’s before me, and seeing the sky (and sometimes the rain or snow), I am connecting, even if indirectly and briefly, with the world outside myself and my immediate surroundings. What I see reminds me that, though I may be solitary, I am not entirely alone.
I’ve never had the kind of “VIEW” people pay huge amounts of money to get, but each window, each time of day or night, and especially each view of skyscapes, especially when there are towering or racing clouds, delights me, and I know that I will always pause whenever I pass my windows, look out for a moment, and regard my bit of the world with appreciation and fondness.
word buffet 