A year of windows
it’s been a year of looking at, through and browsing windows. Watching the light come and go from the windows inside our apartments and homes. Opening them when it’s been a pleasant day and keeping them closed on the days that are too hot. It’s been a solid five months of browsing vapid internet windows, looking for some sense of meaning, solace, purchasing what might make one feel good for a week or two. Every day opening some window that is either full of disappointment, rage, confusion, false reports, reliable reports, protests, deaths, the new numbers of the pandemic or occasionally some good news. Or it’s just opening your browser to put on a show you’ve watched a hundred times already but it’s the only comfort you can find some days. Good news always seems to be harder to find but especially when all is chaos. Even the good.
I wanted to challenge myself to start writing more and decided using my recent renewed interest of taking film photographs to be my starting point and using the photos I take and get developed to be the inspiration to write from.
I’ve certainly spent a lot more time inside this year than I would normally (I’m not special, we all have been doing this) and trying to find activities and different avenues to keep myself engaged and inspired during this time hasn’t been easy. I feel like I struggle to find inspiration and excitement when separated from the world and people around me. Joy and inspiration for me comes from the experiences I can create and participate in. At times I’ve felt adjusted to a more solitary life this year and at others I’m completely depressed, anxious, stressed and struggle to cope.
Currently I am looking out one of my windows as it rains, listening to Harry Styles, drinking iced coffee and trying not to dissociate. This week started with a hell of a period. The kind that when I decided to go for a morning run on Monday I made it a mile before I was incapacitated with cramps that forced me to sit down and call my brother to pick me up. I thought the cramps were going to be the worst of this cycle as they usually are yet manageable but this time it’s been mentally and emotionally exhausting in ways I’m not particularly used to. The kind where my mind is extra foggy and I’m just frustrated but can’t figure out why exactly which is especially frustrating to me because I really dislike when I can’t explain my emotions to myself or if I can’t pin point the root of it.
Now this story might seem a bit off from the how I started this piece but stick with me. I’m a metaphors kind of person, I tell stories to explain what or how I’m feeling in a particular situation or moment. So beginning with the “windows theme” opening and closing them and how it’s relatable to the larger experience in some part of this year. The conclusion to this piece today is nothing new, that wasn’t the goal but more so to relate or share something, anything that is easily digestible. It’s control or the lack thereof that we possess at times.
There have been and always are things that we can’t control. On the flip side, there are a lot of things we can control. We can’t control a global pandemic but for the most part we can control how we respond to it. I can’t tell my body to not have cramps while it just naturally does what my body does but I can manage how I respond to it.
Back to the window, it’s really grey and cloudy this week but the rain is needed. It feels a lot like we’re just watching life happen around us while trying to navigate how to participate safely in it still. Today I had a glimpse of clarity into my own emotions and thoughts as of late and that in one big way being, I feel very out of control of my own reality right now. I don’t want to keep living my life looking out windows, watching the world pass by, wondering what the point is some days but I’ll also look back at this time differently than how I see it right now in this moment.
Windows are a good place to observe and in a big way we’ve all been observing a lot about ourselves and the world around us, those we love, those we do and don’t agree with, and how we need a deeper sense that we are a part of a much bigger organism in times like this rather than our individuality. It’s been a frustrating and exhausting year already but we still have the ability to meet each day where it’s at. Sometimes I forget that. Today isn’t yesterday, tomorrow is not today and the only thing I have is myself right now, sitting in my apartment watching the rainy day, listening to sad music, trying to bring some glue to this entire thought process I’m sharing.
Be here now. That’s what comes to mind. A mantra that I should make permanent in my own day to day. I’m grateful for what I do have and that I have a space to call home. Here’s to the present and doing a new series of writing and wherever it goes. Even if we are living in a world of windows right now, at least there are windows to watch through.
