Fresh Air

My window serves as a gateway allowing breeze and sound to waft subtly into my otherwise dry and stale bedroom. I wonder if I were to lie still enough whether or not the splatters, currents and trickles of the river beyond would be capable of reaching my busied ears.

Often, too often, meandering responsibilities, mundane scheduling, and unimpressive expectations crowd out the simplest and one of the most romantic abilities I have as a created being - sensation.

I forget the calming gift of an open window on a cool spring night until that first week in April when I unashamedly and most excitedly unveil its power. A strength that bitter winds and cold snows have forced to remain locked and untouched until an onset of lengthened days and melting snow beckon its magnificence from hiding. As I unlock and push open the window, the gentle breeze floods back to me and with it a lifetime of memories of such moments. Times throughout the years that I have lain still and quite soothed before another window in another home in another time in another stage of life.

I forget the patter of a beastly rainfall accompanied with a gentle mist that carries on the sideways wind, undaunted by screen or cloth. And sitting beneath a tarp I remember those camping trips - seemingly destroyed by the onset of dropping temperatures and sudden storm, but moreso enriched with good company, games, and frog hops on the pop-up ceiling. Days of humidity sing to the curls upon my head and ask them to spring to life and coil most dramatically and uncontrollably.

And my heart smiles now as I feel alone but not lonely. With so much to observe and a great desire to share it.