It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
~Pat Schneider “The Patience of Ordinary Things”

…leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.
In the dusk of day-shapes
Blurring the sunset,
One little wandering, western star
Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.
Let me go to the window,
Watch there the day-shapes of dusk
And wait and know the coming
Of a little love.
~Carl Sandburg from “At a Window”

Everything looks a little different when framed by a window, especially in the winter when protected from the weather. I am set apart, looking out, rather than immersed within the icy snowy landscape myself.

With that separation, I feel as though I could be looking at the past, the present or the future.

It is not unlike being in an art museum, walking past masterpieces that offer a framed view into another time and place, populated with people I don’t know and will never meet.

So I go to the windows, moving through the house and peering out at the life that awaits beyond the frame. But rather than simply admire the view, protected as I am from the chill wind, I find the courage to walk out the door into whatever awaits beyond the glass.