Open the Shades

It's a dreary, drizzly day. It has rained almost every day for a month and I've been shut up in the house all week. Just now, I decided to open the shades in my office and look out the window. I hadn't done that before. It turns out, there's an ongoing drama taking place outside.

From where I sit, I can see our walnut tree. It is, apparently, the neighborhood playground for squirrels and crows, jays, chickadees and junkos. Every time I look up, it hosts a different set of feathered and furry friends.

When we lived in France, our apartment was just big enough for a bed and a small table with 2 chairs. It was more like a bedroom than an apartment. Cramped, crowded, musty. The window, though, was a masterpiece. It framed a pristine view of a chapel in the foreground with the majestic Alps behind. I would sit at the table with the window wide open and breathe in great gulps of mountain air scented with cherry blossoms. France soaked into my heart in those hours. Often, the hills beckoned me, just as they did Maria von Trapp on the other side of the mountains. I would throw off my resposibility to study and go tromping up the hill to the chapel, or across the river to the medeival village, or up the other way toward the Belle Etoile.

In Togo, we had bars on our windows. Inside the bars were dusty screens and inside the screens, frosted louvered glass. I never looked out the windows there except the call for the kids to come in. I got out of the habit of looking outside.

Today, though, I got back a little taste of what it feels like to be beckoned. I look forward to exploring my new neighborhood. And even to walking up the hills around here. True, they're farther away, but I know they're there and they're calling me today.

Put on your raincoat and come out to play!