Thursday, January 3, 2013

Windows




As I gracefully age I'm of the growing opinion that along with pensions and new body parts we all deserve a window with an achingly beautiful view.

I'm presently in my favorite chair looking out at mine. Beyond the planter box flowers valiantly holding on to early summer blooms, past the recently repaired and soon to be repainted wooden banister, past graceful Pohutakawa limbs is a view of the gentle Waitemata Harbor. No matter what unforeseen treasures or calamities a day brings into being, this view-- with it's sea green turquoise colors and it's beauty are always waiting for me. I never grow tired of the discovery, nor does it fail to put the days into perspective.
I count this panoramic gift as a wholly sublime reminder that my life transpires in a living picture postcard. Moment by seasonal moment hours measured in the movement of weather systems, sunsets, tidal ebbs and flows all swaying their songs in the constant winds that push my home against its crevice in the hillside.
The local architect who stood 40 years ago where the house now stands, was thinking of a shelter here a in homage to this vision. I'm certain of it.  Large important windows, including the ones in the kitchen, all draw the eye towards where the horizon meets the waters below. One's eye, and one's heart are swept beyond the height of wood beam ceilings, and the charm of terraced rooms spiraling upwards. Every first time visitor to our home forsakes the wonderful architecture of the house and makes a beeline for the veranda, often commenting on how we must never get tired of it all.

All one can do, from where I sit is to not forget to be part of paradise. Boats sail past, their white sails like skirt hems across a dance floor. Hot air balloons the colors of rainbows hover in the dawn air and birds maneuver thermals like kites on strings. Whether the view from these windows has calmed a restlessness in me, or a restlessness now subsiding allows me to love what I look at more each day, I cannot say.

I'm learning that for many of us, our eyesight changes for the better with time. The loss of physical acuity gives over to seeing from the heart. Whether we see the world with a jaundiced regard or deepening appreciation has little to do with focal length. Your daily windows and mine can teach us how sight might serve as a meditation on the love of things as they are. If the eyes are windows on the soul, then surely the soul with a window full of rapture to gaze upon, has a reason to look more deeply.