The Day a Window Opened My Life
Spanning maybe three quarters of the wall from floor to ceiling, there are two new windows in our bedroom. They are the classic kind, double hung, with six panes on the top. They open easy and wide, unlike the crank-out ones that had been stuck shut there for years and years before we finally got around to replacing them.
I like our new windows so much that I convinced my husband to move our bed to the opposite side of the room. These days we sleep with three small windows just above the head of our bed and the two large ones to our right. In the months since we moved back into our home after the renovation, bedtime has become transformed.
In the quiet moments before drifting off to sleep, we lie there under moonlight and starlight, the shadows of the day scuttling by with the clouds. On stormy nights, we huddle in the darkness, the rain hammering above our heads, the wind howling all around as we pull the blankets higher, tighter. When it’s warmer, we fling the windows wide open and allow the breeze to gently brush across our faces, fresh air filling our lungs as we drift away.
It’s as if the world has opened up before our eyes. On the weekends if we linger long enough, we awaken to the magenta--scarlet spectacle in the east pushing away the night’s dark curtain. Since our sleigh bed has moved to its new perch, we’ve seen green leaves turn to blazes before reluctantly letting go of their branches only to nestle into the gutters or rustle down to the lawn below. We’ve caught glimpses of deer foraging in the yard, squirrels scampering on the oaks, crimson cardinals flitting in and out of our frame. Most recently, snow has blanketed our roof until eventually it slip slides down onto the new deck that’s waiting there for us when the warmer months come back around.
The new windows have even inspired a new idea. Sometimes in the morning, I slip downstairs in my pajamas, brew coffee, grab my workbag, then tuck myself back into bed. There I sit, propped up on pillows, my mug setting on what I now refer to as my morning stand. As the clouds part for the sun, I pull my favorite books from my bag to begin my morning with a little inspiration, then on to my laptop to begin my writing. Today’s topic? Our new windows.
The ironic thing is that we have lived here for nearly 30 years. We got married here. We raised our son, daughter and black Labrador here. But it’s only now that I’m seeing it all through a fresh lens.
The sculptor Frederick Franck once said: “Merely looking at the world around us is immensely different from seeing it.” His point is well taken.
Two new windows have opened up a whole new world for me. I call them my grateful windows. Because everything that I’m the most thankful for in my life has been here all along. I just had to find a new way of looking at it.
