By special request...

Though it's rare these days sometimes I try my hand at more creative pieces. This one is from 2-6-04 and is being posted by special request.

An Open Window on a Winter's Night

Sometimes in the winter one's house seems to become a prison. The dry, dusty heat from the radiators becomes stuffy and suffocating. That is exactly the case on this very night tonight...so, I open my bedroom window. I only open it about 5 inches or so and contrary to my expectations I feel no sudden gush of cold air or icy blast, instead it just sort of feels like my room is letting out a deep breath of air, like a sigh-a sigh of relief. It just feels so good. I can't think of a more imaginative or appropriate word. The thing that strkes me most is the sound. It is still very quiet yet now there is life in what I realize now was more like a stuffy tomb. My room breathes and I breathe. I can hear the air-not wind-just air as it moves and circulates about my room, my body. Just outside my window I can hear the "drip drip" of water dorplets falling from an icicle. It seems too cold for ice to be melting and it gives me a sort of reassurance that Spring is coming-that life is coming. I imagine that below my window the droplets are forming a glossy, icy pool on the snow's surface. I imagine the street light, though at a distance, reflects and dances on the pool bringing it to life. It is not a fantastic bright light but a graceful and gentle one that is the shade of a deep, subdued yellow.

The sounds are so deceptive- it really sounds like an evening after a Spring rain. The air is cool and wet-such a contrast to the usual dry frigidity of winter. My room doesn't even feel cold yet, just cool like an early Spring evening- you'd never guess it's February 6th. In the distance I can hear the constant movement of vehicles on the highway. Traffic sounds steady yet I doubt it's all that busy at this time on a Friday night. The sounds of the cars blend w/ the dripping and breathing and the sound of my pencil. Only the occasional breaking of a big rig in the distance or a slamming of a car door in the nearby parking lot interrupts the serenity of this moment.