Chickens In A Window

"Walking is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things.

It is the one way of freedom.

If you go to a place on anything but your own feet 

you are taken there too fast,

and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside."

-- Elizabeth von Arnim,

The Adventures of Elizabeth Rugen

Ceramic chickens in a shop window 11-23-14

"It is good to collect things,

but it is better to go on walks."

-- Anatole France

Ceramic chickens in a shop window 11-23-14

"Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors ...

disconnected from each other. 

On foot everything stays connected, 

for while walking one occupies the spaces between those interiors ...

One lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it."

-- Rebecca Solnit, 

Wanderlust: A History of Walking

I'm bored with exercising indoors, so yesterday I headed out for a long walk.

I saw our local fire department burning down a house for "firefighter training."

I saw hundreds of geese flying in the sky in honking, noisy Vs.

And I saw these chickens looking out from behind the glass of a closed-up shop's window.

If I hadn't taken the walk, I'd have missed seeing the firefighters.

I'd have missed seeing the geese.

And I'd have missed seeing the chickens.

It's a good thing I took a walk.

Letting The Outside In

"Set wide the window. Let me drink the day."

-- Edith Wharton, 

Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses

Toy window 8-14-14

"How does light enter a house? If the windows are open.

How does light enter a human? If the door of love is open."

-- Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

Every summer a war rages in my house.

The guys like it cool.

I like it hot.

As soon as the furnace is turned off in spring, they turn the AC on.

On any given summer day, it's not unusual to hear one of them complaining, shirtless, about how "stinkin' hot it is in here," while I'm shivering in a sweater and jeans under a fuzzy blanket.

If it was up to me, I'd have the windows and doors open all summer long, except maybe during the most heinous heat waves. 

But the guys like to batten down the hatches, lock everything up and seal us in tight day after day after day after day -- like lizards in a terrarium. 

Maybe it's my claustrophobia, but I can't stand being shut in like that.  It's stifling. I can't breathe.

I like to let the outside in so I can feel the breeze, smell the air, hear the rain and the birds and the children and the lawn mowers.

Don't tell the guys, but sometimes, when I'm home alone, I leave the AC on and open the windows anyway. (In the winter, I do the reverse -- open the windows and jack up the heat. I do the same thing in my car.)

But then there are days -- days when the natural atmosphere outside matches the climate-controlled atmosphere inside -- when the temperature settles in at a perfect 70-something and a lazy breeze chases away the dampness and humidity -- when I can throw up the sashes and let the air out there mingle with the air in here.

We're in a stretch of days like that, and I have the place wide open.

These are the days when there's no need to battle and we can call a truce in the window war. 

Plus, I'm home alone and there's nobody here to tell me that I can't.