Home and Window Watching

I’ve always loved the connection between the inside and outside of homes. In this travel article about the ubiquity of window watching in the Netherlands, one of the photographs looks as though it could be straight from my picture book Home Is a Window. Like the Dutch, I feel more connected to the world when I have a view to the outside from inside, and I don’t mind passersby having a view through my front windows as they go about life.

In 2010 after a difficult move away from a place of security to a place full of unknowns, I found a bit of comfort and connection in the evenings when I’d walk around the condominium complex where we were living. I wrote about this experience in the poem below.

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Condominium Windows at Night

Blessings to you in your soft white kitchen,
and to you in the next one over,
synchronized women
pouring water,
spreading butter,
washing hands.

Blessings to you, shirtless man,
placing your white, white towel
on its hook beside two other
white, white towels.
I'm sorry you saw me watching,
but I was walking my dog, looking up,
and your window shone.

Blessings to you of the darkened room and
tall bed shadowed blue with evening
news.

And to you of the incandescent
Christmas tree in early November.

And to you sitting alone at the ornate table.

Blessings to you of brown couch and bare feet,
stretched legs mingled with white poodle.
And to the sleeping poodle, too,
blessings.

Blessings.

© 2010 Stephanie Parsley Ledyard