Friday, May 10, 2013

Open Windows


Now is perfect weather:  bright and sunny, warm, slightly cool breeze but not cool enough to call for a sweater, azure sky, and long hours of daylight.  Now is the time we leave every window and door to the flat wide open.  I love it.

We live in close quarters here with our neighbors.  When the windows are open, we not only see, but hear everything:  the workman tapping with his hammer, the children at play, the clinking of cutlery as people eat their meals, arguments, conversations between people from balcony to balcony, cats yowling, dogs barking, cars passing, laundry (or our Greek flag) flapping, birds chirping.  I've become more than used to it; I have learned to love it and miss it when the windows are closed.  Why do I love it?  Because this way, we get a real sense of the whole neighborhood, and by extension the whole city and the whole world, living one, single, common life.  We are all a part of everything, all in it together (even the cats and birds), and together making up one breath-taking tapestry.

In some parts of the world, this sort of thing is a profound mystical insight, a debatable  philosophical proposition or a doctrine taught in books of theology; but here, it's just everyday experience, normal living, something so obvious as to be taken for granted.

2 comments:

elizabeth said...

I love this too...very much...

Anam Cara said...

We live in a typical American suburban neighborhood. I love to have my windows open and avoid closing them for air conditioning or heating as much as possible. I especially like the windows open at night. We can hear the neighborhood dogs, teens out on decks or in their yards laughing late at night, all the cars that go past, and amazingly, the AC units turning on and off of those who close up their homes at the first sign of 70 degrees. On cool nights I get to go to sleep to the smell of wood fires - someone either is using their fireplace or has a firepit in their yard. The sounds and smells don't bother me at all. It is like heaven!