Sunday, August 8, 2010

Writer at the Window


One great thing about rain is that it makes it easier for me to stay at my desk and work.   The lure to be outside in dry weather--warm or cold--is great.  That my desk now faces a window with a view of lake and trees, of birds and squirrels and chipmunks is sometimes a danger ('Come out, come out'), but just as often, staring out the window seems to realign the tangled circuits of my brain. 

In our many years in England, we lived in charming 300-year-old cottages, but the hardest part of living in them was their darkness:  low ceilings and tiny windows. You have to get right up to the window to peer out. You are begging the light to enter, but it does not enter, and so you have to flee for the outdoors before you go mad.  

Well, maybe not 'you,' but me.