My apartment has only two windows. One in the bedroom and the other in the living room. They over look the same beige backs of the condos on the other side of the street, the little parking lot, and the insufficient awning that attempts to shelter bicycles behind ours. A weathered grey wooden fence separates the lots, dotted with ambitious moss and some sage green squiggly lichen. In the summer tiny birds come and sing to me from the fence. A robin one year, and a red-headed something-or-another the next. Sometimes there is a black and white tuxedo cat who prowls carelessly along the lip, other times a squirrel who will pause to nibble something important and then continue on his way.
Inside the living room has changed layout endless times to acquire the best light, the best floor space, the best spot for the sewing machine. Always the light from the one window is teasing me, begging me to move all the furniture out of the way and have a picnic on the floor below it. I have watched four years worth of seasons change from behind it's glass and screen. I have flung the window wide open in hopes of catching the smallest breeze to alleviate the sticky doldrum heat. I have closed it snugly in vain hopes of keeping any amount of warmth from the old electric heater that sits directly below in. I crack it open just a bit when the spring rains begin, to hear the pattering of the droplets and the singing of the birds. To smell the creeping hint of fall when summer's shadows grow short and cooler.
I used to lament that the view wasn't better. That there were more trees, or anything green, that there was better breeze or sunlight. Today I am happy that it is here at all. I have learned where the greenery is. The bamboo that sighs in the garden of the condos to the right, the fig tree slowly gaining height in the peculiar little back yard space on the left. The one scraggly little shrub that grows in a rooftop garden only visible from my drawing table. The ambitious moss on my fence.
Today the crows are wheeling elsewhere. The wind is perfect for it. Good updrafts with some nice currents to hover on. The rain has stopped so the pigeons are out doing their formation exercises. (I always imagine them as stout British air pilots.) I am contemplating doing some painting. The day is perfect for it.
Inside the living room has changed layout endless times to acquire the best light, the best floor space, the best spot for the sewing machine. Always the light from the one window is teasing me, begging me to move all the furniture out of the way and have a picnic on the floor below it. I have watched four years worth of seasons change from behind it's glass and screen. I have flung the window wide open in hopes of catching the smallest breeze to alleviate the sticky doldrum heat. I have closed it snugly in vain hopes of keeping any amount of warmth from the old electric heater that sits directly below in. I crack it open just a bit when the spring rains begin, to hear the pattering of the droplets and the singing of the birds. To smell the creeping hint of fall when summer's shadows grow short and cooler.
I used to lament that the view wasn't better. That there were more trees, or anything green, that there was better breeze or sunlight. Today I am happy that it is here at all. I have learned where the greenery is. The bamboo that sighs in the garden of the condos to the right, the fig tree slowly gaining height in the peculiar little back yard space on the left. The one scraggly little shrub that grows in a rooftop garden only visible from my drawing table. The ambitious moss on my fence.
Today the crows are wheeling elsewhere. The wind is perfect for it. Good updrafts with some nice currents to hover on. The rain has stopped so the pigeons are out doing their formation exercises. (I always imagine them as stout British air pilots.) I am contemplating doing some painting. The day is perfect for it.
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