Out My Window

I'm sitting at my desk drinking a "made from scratch" blueberry oj coconut rum smoothie, greatly appreciative for the cool breeze created by a fan set on high. My computer sits in front of the pile of books I'll be teaching from this week; lesson plans, assessment sheets, and an abundant supply of colored markers spill across the remainder of the black faux wood.

My desk is tucked into a corner of our front room: the left corner, where I sit now, backs up against one of our street-side windows. As I sat down to write this evening, intending to blog about this or that story from my life, I thought of a prompt I once heard from a friend: to write about what one sees out one's window everyday. Over the past year, as I've transitioned from place to place to yet another place, I've often reflected on the events, people, and images framed by my windows.

Now, as I once again settle in, with no intentions to leave on the near horizon, I catch myself contemplating this window - and what I see through its screen (for it's far too muggy to keep our windows closed).

We live on a quiet street, Buckingham Place, a home for royalty if one slips an extra vowel. Tucked between 44th and 45th, one-way traffic only, it's all of one block long. The kind of street that you likely only know exists if you live here, or know someone who lives here, or just like to walk around West Philly and discover all the hidden streets. The kind of street that doesn't cater to emergency vehicles or public transportation or any kind of acceleration.

There is a tree directly out my window and electrical lines strung with sneakers. One of these days, I'll probably have something very important to procrastinate: those shoes must eventually be counted (or perhaps photographed). Through the branches and leaves, the other side of the street looms, every house the same as ours - and yet, not. Built identical, the buildings are now old and each much proud of its own particular character. Each has a front porch; this is the kind of street where people sit on their porches, have parties on their porches, keep strange statues on their porches, even philosophize on their porches. I don't know most of my neighbors, but I am acquainted with the homeless man who does know all of them, and who often sleeps on one or another porch.

My boyfriend calls it a hippie street - and then tells me that I fit in perfectly. Something about my flowing skirts and eccentric jewelry: we live on a street where drummers and landscapers and writers all seem to sip from the fount of creativity. Some nights there enters through my window a cool breeze, a twist of melody, the murmur of lives lived.

Through my window, I glimpse my life.