The way in which I experience a window depends on the weather that day, and if I’m on vacation, and the temperature of my coffee, and if it’s a Tuesday or a Sunday, and whether or not I have a good book to read, and if I’m waiting for someone, or if someone is waiting for me, and if there’s something happening outside, and whether or not I want to leave my body behind.
Some days windows are protection: from the rain, the cold, the “real world,” the sadness and injustice and pain that rear their ugly heads just outside my bedroom. Other days, windows are temptation: a promise of freedom and San Francisco sunshine and a colorful, vibrant world waiting to be explored just outside the office walls…
I dream about windows a lot, too, mostly when I’m daydreaming and thinking about where I’d like to wake up and drink my morning coffee, or evening glass of wine, or midday Diet Coke (with a turkey sandwich, of course, and yes, I know Diet Coke will give me cancer, but no one is perfect).
When I’m lonely, I’ll dream of a window overlooking a snow-covered mountain, where the snow is so deep that you can’t make out the brown of the tree branches below its thick layers.
When I’m happy, the window is open wide so that, even from my bed, I feel the mist of the ocean’s spray and smell the salt water so strongly it’s as if I’m standing with my toes touching the water. (Is there anything better than the smell of salt water, of knowing the ocean is near?)
I spent this past weekend in Monterey and painted these window scenes this afternoon while Thomas and Aaaron “hooped it up” in the nearby park:
Earlier this morning, I went for a walk along the coast and admired the houses with perfectly-manicured gardens lining other side of the road. I squinted my eyes in attempts to peer into each of their massive glass windows, trying to catch a glimpse of what life was like inside those colorful, warm, bright walls. What was the woman in the kitchen writing as she bent down over the marble countertop? Was she listening to music? What was the young couple (and were they on holiday, or were they able to afford that house this young?) sipping from their wine glasses? What would it be like to be on the inside of those houses, looking out through those windows at the teal-blue ocean, at all the tourists biking by, at me?
Maybe I’m in France in the second window, I’m not yet sure. I’ll find it, though – at the very least, in my dreams. Don’t windows make you hopeful? And sad, at the same time?
