The Framed Infinite

I believe windows are celebrated in direct proportion to the degree one is conscious of circumscription. For those who live a seeming free range existence, the window’s presence and function is assumed. Simultaneously looked through– and overlooked. Unregistered as the pattern of curtains in a neighbor’s home, or the direction of the thieving wind that rifles casually through the hillside untouchable by man made laws. 

Windows exist to be looked through yes, but they are not meant to be overlooked. Being transparent is not the same thing as being insignificant. In this way windows are related to the invisible. 

Put another way: if you do not have a meaningful relationship with windows, then it is possible, that you have some difficulty perceiving grace. For those whose days are constrained, and conscious, the window is as impossible to overlook as a peacock or a comet. It is a portal, and a horn of plenty, an altar, an avenue whose significance is vital and imperative to life. A window is the infinite, framed in a rectangle of glass, granting depth, mystery and the possibility of exploration to actors who play daily in very small, forgotten theaters. Patients in hospital beds understand the silent sustenance of windows. So do prisoners, and largely housebound creatures with vast interior lives — like dogs, cats, very young humans, very old ones, and Emily Dickinson. 

It must be mentioned here that for optimal results windows must not be over zealously substituted for walls. A residence where all walls double as windows soon grows tedious and disconcerting. A reverse prison. Celebrities and goldfish understand this better than most. 

It is sometimes necessary to explain to denizens of the modern world, that television is not the same thing as a window. Neither is your browser. They bear certain overt similarities yes — but overt similarity is a very low bar for most things. A table and a panther are similar in that they both have four legs. But you cannot interchange them without attracting notice and untoward consequences.

If you find it absolutely necessary to draw comparisons, then a window is more like a book or a bridge than a television or a computer screen. Should the occasion demand it you may swap one for the other without hesitation or catastrophic result.