Through the looking glass...

Back home in Colorado, we have a house that has the typical patio doors. They are glass sliding doors, so when the patio is shut or not, you can see outside to the backyard, to our neighbors white fence, to the open field. You can see that we are diagonal from Windsor High School, the track and football field visible, and the wall of trees separating the school from our divisions of homes, always visible.

As I pondered tonight, while driving home from work, the fact I am going to be back in our house with Doug, in Colorado in less than a week, I am drawn to thinking about those patio doors, and that "window" out to our Colorado world. I always find myself drawn to those doors, when we go home. Opening up the drapes ever so slightly, staring out of the windows for what feels like hours..just to watch the silent world go by. I am not sure if it is to look out at our past, nights out on the stone paved patio that Doug and I (ok, more Doug than me) built together our first Memorial Day weekend in the house, thinking about the nights spent on that patio, enjoying some of Doug's great burgers, or marinated steaks, fresh off the Grill as we ate while watching the sun go down, and sipping wine. I gaze out and think about the football games that during the summer we could hear without even having to open our doors or windows, the announcer loud enough he would invade our house as I walked to get a pop, or a glass of water. Since we've moved, when I go home to Colorado, I find myself gazing out of those doors, imaging a future out there. Maybe little kids playing out there someday, or a dog romping around in the grass. I listen to the absolute silence that seems to surround Windsor, a stark comparison to the difference here in California.

Interestingly enough, when we left Colorado, and moved here, I was really bummed I wouldn't have that same option. This great patio door area to loose myself out into gazing into my past and future. Our patio here, opens to the pool the complex shares, so not a place to get lost in your thoughts.

Oddly enough though, here, I have adapted a  new approach of looking thru the glass so to speak. Without fail, every morning, I wake up to cast aside part of the blinds of our bedroom windows to gaze out to the world California presents to me. I noticed I began doing this almost immediately when we moved here. Opening the blinds to peer out and see how close the mountains seemed. I am a bit OCD of somethings, and every morning, compulsion or not, hop up to if nothing more, check to make sure my car is in the carport. But inevitably just like at home, I find myself gazing out into the window at the outside world. Not so much looking back at the past, or trying to find the future, but peering out into my present. Remembering each day where I am at, as the palm trees stretch out to greet me. When, on a good day (like this morning) I see the most gorgeous sunrise reflect into our bedroom, forcing me to open the blinds of the window and gaze, stopping myself for a few minutes to take in the beauty. 

As I get myself ready to go back to Colorado for the holidays, I am eager to find my place again against those patio doors. The same doors our beloved cats Sienna and Joeycat routinely sat in front of to sun themselves even on the coldest of days. To loose myself once again, in that serene beauty of Colorado in the winter. For now, I will continue to gaze out our windows here in Cali, and focus on the present.