The other day in class we were given the prompt of writing about something that we remembered seeing that week and writing in detail about it. I had chosen to write about the window view I have from my bedroom. I live on the 14th floor of my building so I have a really nice view of a lot of the city, but the window of my bedroom looks out onto this one side street and off into a neighborhood. Everyday I look out that window and just stare. Most of the time no one ever is really seen walking and not many cars usually drive by either. I think the most notable thing I see when I look out my window is all the other windows I notice. Everytime I look out I think about all the other people and lives that are in these windows. Within all these windows are people with careers, family, friends, dreams, and ambitions. It’s interesting to think that within any given day someone in one of these windows could be having the best day of their life or the worst day of their life. I also think it’s rather interesting that I’ve never actually seen anyone in any of these windows.
While doing this exercise I thought about how you could write and create a whole story about looking out a window. It gave me the same energy as the film/book “The Girl on the Train”. I have never read the book (which I probably should) but I saw the film. It’s about this woman named Rachel who takes the train to work every morning, and every morning she sees the life of this couple unfold before her eyes through the window of the train. It’s quite a crazy thing to think about how much we can observe about a person when they don’t think anyone is looking, we watch people at their most vulnerable and real. It’s the moments in our lives that are the most personal that are the ones that a writer can make a connection to a reader with.
When I look out my window I see this side street with a few townhouses across the street from each other. I see the same two little boys running in the street and playing. There’s no backyard or grass, only the street. I think that’s the beauty of childhood, you make your own fun anywhere, even in the street. I see them chase each other but they never go very far, they never go to the ends of the street, they stay pretty close to their house which is in the middle of the street. The other day I actually saw those two little boys on the street when I was walking to my friends apartment. I knew it was them from the clothes they were wearing. It was kind of funny being able to put a face to these two small bodies I had been seeing runaround down below.
It also got me thinking about how small everything looks from down below. Even the buildings that would tower over me look small and insignificant. I think life can be like that a lot in a sense, you don’t really realize how small we really are in this world. I talk about this a lot with my friends but it’s so crazy to think about that across the country there is a group of people our age are sitting around having the same conversations as us or dealing with similar issues as us but we don’t realize it. A lot of times we think our issues are much bigger than they seem and I think writing can help to put that into perspective and also give us an outlet to express how we’re feeling about these things. Even though we really are so small compared to everything this world and universe has to offer, our feelings and thoughts are rather large. Most of the time our thoughts are universal to those around us or even on the other side of the world, these things are large.
I found this to be my favorite writing prompt we had in class so far. It was quite calming to look out my window and reflect on this view I see everyday, it also forced me to pay attention to these things I don’t think twice about. Even when no one is walking down the side street or any cars are driving by, life is happening and passing by within those buildings. It’s so interesting when you really just sit back and think about how all these lives and stories are going on and we don’t even really realize it nor take very much notice.