Monday, April 11, 2011

Windows and Gumballs 1001:4

Walking is good.  It expands my universe, and gives me things to think about.  Exercise, fresh air, checking out the neighborhood.  Collecting signs.  Looking in windows.

One of the things I think about as I walk is other people's homes.  I look in windows of the houses I pass while I'm walking in my friendly little town, but only at night when the lights are on and the interior is clearly visible.  It doesn't count as voyuerism if the curtains are open, the lights are on, and I can see from the sidewalk while moving at a normal pace. I'm sure this is not an invasion of private space because I visited Boston a few times in my youth.  In my friend's apartment, there was a big bay window in the dining area, which faced across a 4 foot distance to the apartment building next door. In the apartment building next door, there was a big bay window in their dining area, which faced ours.  No curtains were put up by either tenant, and during the course of the day we could observe each other continually.  No one undressed while I was there.  It was an interesting kind of living space for someone like me, who grew up a few fields' length away from other houses. In farming communities, it would be a lot more like voyeurism to check out lighted rooms, because no way could it be construed casual to leave the road, hike up a lane, and peer in a window. 

I've moved around different states a lot, and have sociological theories about each place I've lived.  Ever since Boston I've believed that, wherever the locale, curtainless windows left open to the view of any passersby give tacit consent to observation.  Plus it is very cozy to walk along at night and check out the variety of interior deocration.  Dark colors are popular here on walls, now.   Usually in these front well-lighted rooms, there aren't any people.  Once in a while, you'll see a family finishing up a meal or sitting around reading, or having visitors.  Mostly, its a friendly shared space, which I find comforting.  If someone was self-conscious about strangers passing by and looking in, I feel sure they would close their curtains. I know I do.

When walking in the daytime, however, its not really possible to take in the warm glow of someone else's living room, so I occupy myself with other thoughts.  After a while, walking becomes an almost automatic function; your body takes over a designated pace, and the verbal part of the brain has opportunity to roam the landscape.  Almost always when I'm walking I find interesting natural artifacts.  A nice rock, a wasp's nest, interesting sticks or weeds or bird's nests. 

The other day I walked by a gumball tree, whose fallen gumballs had survived the winter in good form.  They were scattered on the ground and I collected a handful. I love gumballs.  Some people think they are messy trees, because they drop the spiny little round balls.  I think they're wonderful.  They are excellent firestarters, with nice popping and sparking effects.  At Fort Du Chartres (a historical French fort in the southern part of Illinois) I saw them raked up in mounds around the trees in the fort, and used as mulch.  Very nice looking mulch, too.  And gumballs look pretty as wreaths, or strung as natural dried decoration.  I brought my handful home with me, to look at for a while.  Maybe I'll draw a picture of them, or add them to mulch around a favorite indoor or outdoor plant

My mom used to collect trash from the ditches when she walked along the roads near our home farm.  She liked to walk down the road because it was usually free of snakes, and for good fast solid walking it beat climbing over sticks, muddy ruts, corn stubble, and such.  But she needed some occupation while walking, and because its a long lonely stretch of road, lots of people used to toss their bottles and cans and sometimes other things out their windows as they breezed through without benefit of any traffic controls.  Mom did a really good job for several years of picking up cans and bottles, and taking them to the recycle for refunds.  It made her happy to clean up AND make a few bucks.

Of course I could go on and on about my other walking side-lines: the trash-picker fun on trash day, the ideas I get for paintings as the seasons change, the woman I've seen walking in my neighborhood almost every day for 8 years, and other interesting things.  But I have 996 stories left to go, so I'll save those for another day. 

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