Gazing out My Window

The snow from the winter storm that arrived yesterday morning is melting fast. Traces of snow remain on the grass and on the neighborhood rooftops, but even that is disappearing as I look out my window. Melting snow water is running off gutters and down the driveways and streets.

You might ask, “So what,” especially if you are reading this from Minneapolis, Buffalo, or Fargo.

Noticing things like this adds to my life. And I have a perfect perch for noticing things—my office window.

Looking out my window is a phrase I return to over and over again, because it is what I do. Staring is my work. Noticing things is what I do, or at least try to do. When I don’t, I feel I have missed something- I have missed what it is to live my life.

My writing and meditation space points my focus from my desk to my window, back to my desk and so on. I look out at my yard, over the small lake I live on, into the vacant field rimmed by pines across the lake, a perfect view for gazing, peering, watching, and otherwise what some would call daydreaming and wasting time. This is a part of my job today. It is an important role that I play – to be a watcher, a gazer, to pay attention. As Mary Oliver wrote, “To pay attention is an act of devotion”.

I have read enough stories from those who are fellow gazers of life that tell me I’m not alone in this. Many artists, writers, contemplatives, and mystics testify that their work begins and is fueled by an act of leisurely watching what is before them. They never consider this a waste of their time, but rather when they are peering out at the unfolding life before them from a desk or chair, their consciousness opens up mysteriously to another level of thought and emotion. They experience another way of being.

Looking out my window is a different experience than being out in nature. A window neatly and sharply frames what I am looking at. The window is framed by what I am familiar with and what I have control over. It is framed by my tidy domicile. But through the window, I am peering out into another world, a world I do not control, a world that does not ask my permission for anything, but rather invites me to enter into it through my focused attention.

As I look out into the world framed by my window, I discover the multi-dimensions of it. I watch the chipmunks scurry down into their underground homes. I watch cardinals and bluebirds dance with each other in mid-air. Herons dive under the surface of the lake and come up with their meal, while fish jump and turtles pop their heads above water to see what going on, all while the cows across the lake bellow at each other.

When I look out my window with leisurely attention and focus on worlds I do not control, I am taken along for a ride. Sometimes it’s a gentle stroll, and sometimes it’s an exhilarating flight. But always I am taken somewhere else, to a destination I did not anticipate. The ride may take a few side trips and stops along the way.

When I sit silently in front of my window, I give my mind and emotions space and permission to wander and enter into a reverie that takes me to another consciousness. Sometimes it results in a poem, or an essay, or a song.. but all of it is a prayer, for this does not happen by my own will, but in the presence and by the will of another. I have not wasted time. By some grace,  I have transcended it.