The View From My Window

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This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising.

Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.

— John Muir

 

In March 2020, during the early weeks of the pandemic, a graphic designer was living in an apartment in Amsterdam. Like tens of millions of us, digital creator Barbara Duriau was stuck at home. It seems so long ago, almost unreal now. The pandemic’s effects were stark and real. Most people knew at least someone who succumbed to COVID-19. For many, the loss was more personal and painful. Let us never forget that.

Duriau, whose team designed a colorful jetliner exterior for Brussels Airlines featuring the iconic comic character Tintin (created by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé), created a Facebook group called “View From My Window.” As she wrote, she did not realize the global impact her simple notion would have. She created “a space where people from all over the world could share a glimpse of their daily lives through a photo taken from their window.” More than 4 million people have joined the group and submitted photos. They still do.

My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I still lived in town during the height of the pandemic. Our confinement was not onerous; we both just worked from home, took socially distant walks in our picturesque neighborhood, ordered groceries online, and picked them up outside the stores. The UPS truck arrived regularly with online purchases.

We were doubtless fortunate compared to so many — those felled by COVID-19, their families, the frontline workers in the stores that stayed open, healthcare workers dealing with so much illness and death. Still, it was a strange, scary time even as my BMC and I lived in a bubble for nearly a year, until the vaccines arrived.

I joined Duriau’s “View From My Window” Facebook group as soon as I discovered it. When I needed a break from work or grew tired of reading, I would often scroll through the images submitted to VFMW. I still do on occasion, or they pop up in my FB feed. (An aside: I prefer Bluesky, and you can find and follow me there as well. However, most people still find my pieces on Facebook, so I will stay there for now  as well.)

The view from my window changed almost precisely four years ago, when we bought the farm, as they say. My desk sits at one end of the sunroom, surrounded by overly full bookshelves on three sides. The south wall contains five large picture windows. The view down the hill from our house is of Pancho’s Pond, named for our aged donkey, who is usually grazing nearby. A horizon of hardwood trees forms the background, with a few dead ones standing out among the greenery, the sinking sun catching the gray branches among the gray. Closer in, the backyard is filled with flowers and plants that attract butterflies and bees. That is solely the work of My BMC, who owns two green thumbs.

If I stand up from my desk, I can see the gas well in the gravel parking lot in front of Pancho’s Pond. After all, this is Gregg County — Ground Zero for an oil and natural gas boom that began in 1930 and still chugs along today. I could do without the gas well, aesthetically, but the parking lot comes in handy. Various farm implements are parked in that lot. It is large enough for an 18-wheeler to turn around in.

The dog days begin today, August 1, at least on my mental calendar. (As usual, we plan to escape for eight days this month to New England.) About four hours working outside is all my nearly 70-year-old body can handle. I shower and spend the rest of my day under 74-degree AC, writing, researching, and reading — and enjoying the view from my window.

A photo of the view from my window during a late-July gloaming accompanies this piece. The southern sky glows with colors not often seen in summer, when days in East Texas are usually spent beneath cloudless skies. The small, fenced backyard is well-manicured. The crape myrtle glows a deep scarlet, the potato plants a luminescent lime green. But it is the light in the sky, reflecting a setting sun, that makes this view magical, at least to me during the gloaming.

It is always the light that makes the view. And to paraphrase John Muir’s quotation at the top, “There’s always a sunset somewhere.”

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