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subwaythru -> RE: The View Out My Unwindow (7/17/2010 9:35:54 PM)
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I love your question. It is one that inspires reflection and enlightenment.
I have spent quite a lot of time wishing that the view out of my window could be the view I had out of my window when I lived that other life. It was a beautiful view, and it was a view of what I saw as paradise, of ponds and pastures and birds and trees and gardens and, especially, two little boys in overalls all over the place at once, the way little boys do. One minute they were swinging from the trees, the next they were mucking about with the cows, the next they were paddling around the pond in their canoe.
That view is no longer available, except in the pictures that I carry in my heart. I realized when I read your question that finally, I do not any longer wish that this was the view out my window.
Since that view went away, I have looked out on many different views, including one over an alley where junkies copped day and night, one in a basement that looked out on to a cement walkway and a drainpipe and feet passing by, and one with a hedge that grew right up to the glass and smushed its leaves against the window as if trying to get inside. Yes, there were a couple of windowless places, too. Fluorescent lights, fans, and hundreds of tropical plants created a jungle I lived in and could look at.
The window at which I sit now every morning and drink my tea frames a view of a huge mountain of magical beauty, which changes every moment with changes in light, shadow, cloud formations, snow, and rain. Immediately outside this window is a cedar gazebo bird feeder that my father built for me, which brings chickadees, grosbeaks, jays, towhees, nuthatches, finches, among others, and of course, the squirrels. I look directly onto a public walking/hiking/jogging/biking trail, which provides unending amusement, as I never know what is going to come down the trail next. I've seen unicyclists, elk, bear, cougars, parties of inebriated homeless people singing in 4-part harmony while passing a bottle. Behind the trail is a lovely deep forest. A few steps down the trail and there is a river and farmland that rivals the loveliest English landscapes.
I didn't plan on this view out my window. I never thought any view would be acceptable but the first one with the little boys. After that view went away, I never thought that I would see beauty in anything ever again. I thought that was the only beauty I would be able to see or want.
I came to this place and I sat in my rocking chair in this window for 2 solid months of unrelenting rain. The winter went on, ended, moved through spring and then suddenly one day, it was summer outside the window.
I realize now that wherever I am at, whatever the view, how I see what I am looking at is mine to choose. I could be incarcerated in the hole in prison and carry paradise in my heart. I could live on a bluff overlooking the ocean in the tropics and hold only ugliness and ingratitude in my soul's obstinate blindness. Today I am grateful for what is before me, and I keep in mind that like all the other views I have beheld, they could be gone before I finish blinking my eyes. If I could have any view, it would be one of clarity and acceptance of what is, not what I think that I wish could be.
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