The first author commented on two particular writers who wrote for many years from a prison cell or a cellar hidden away from windows yet not needing physical windows to peer through as the mind with its vivid imagination provides "windows" with marvelous views. So true for those of us visual beings. Another writer saw the movement of the sea, birds, and boats as inspiration to keep writing and reading. I love that image of movement continuing, whether in the natural world or in the fingers moving the pen or tapping keyboard symbols, the eyes scanning written words wherever they may be found, the mind creating.
While waiting for this device to recharge, I start reading Bill Bryson's book At Home that Brian from Boston gifted us with recently. I find myself reading about the author's discovery of a hidden room high atop his house in England in which there is a window that gives him a view of his village and countryside that he has never seen before. Imagine that...what a lovely connection! As he "took in this unexpected view", it struck him what history is really all about is "masses of people doing ordinary things". He says, "It is these sorts of things that fill our lives and thoughts, and yet we treat them as incidental and hardly worthy of serious consideration."
Outside the back windows of my house, the view is beautiful. Live oak trees fill the landscape with their strength and fullness. A guesthouse separate from the main house prompts many memories of those who have lived there for a short or long time, stayed for only a night or two, or worked on turning the structure into a livable area. There are many memories associated with the sight of its welcoming presence. Rocks built into a short, winding wall nearby provide the backdrop for the deer stopping by to drink from the metal watering trough, nap in the sun, spar with a competing buck, munch on acorns or just ambling through on their way to another spot. Living on almost an acre of land on the edge of a canyon provides a wonderful sense of serenity in the midst of life in all its facets. Mostly branches from all the trees arching over and reaching high greet my eyes as my head turns toward the windows gracing the front of our house. Houses across the street peek through; neighbors walking alone, together or with their dogs, riding bicycles or an occasional skateboard pass along quite frequently. Squirrels scamper, birds land here and there, an occasional hawk, owl, raccoon, armadillo and even fox find their way into my view not to forget our neighbor's cats George and Toodles.
As I have read accounts of others' views of crowded city streets, jungles, buildings and seashores or views seen only from the window within their mind, I think how vastly different is mine. Not only the real view, but also the perspective we each have that is unseen. Through art, music, literature, exploration, research, building, medicine, design, engineering, farming, gardening, sport, technology, theatre, cooking, journalism--and the unending list goes on--human beings across the globe and through all of time express these "views out the windows" of our souls, our minds, our hearts and occasionally the real sights we see out our windows. Can we learn to appreciate these views more, no matter how different they are from our own? Can we recognize them in all the many forms they take? And can we perhaps enlarge our windows to enable us to see so much more than ever before?
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