Smoke and Gaslight
I like to call it the mystery window. The cut of my apartment house limits the full view so I can only get partial views of people coming and going. It actually helps with the imagination. A quick glimpse of a sleeve or an echo of a voice can tell me which of my neighbors are walking out on their way to who knows where. Or if I see the rake of my neighbor propped against the opposite wall, I know that spring is here and she is about to replant the garden with a skill and mastery perfected over 50 years that I could never get right. Kids running a hundred miles an hour as they race to the center of the courtyard bounce by as I sit at my kitchen table.
One of my first memories moving into my home was of the bright stream of sunshine that starts as a peek through the blinds in the early morning, gradually growing till it spills into my living room. Light in other parts of my home doesn’t radiate that way. And it is a welcome start to the day as I race out to whatever surprises await me once I open my door.
