Windows. A window. A window into someone's life. A window of opportunity. Flown out the window. Thrown out the window. Windows. Standing at this window now, my elbow rests on the windowsill. The scent of Spring and Sunday morning toast wafting in. I can't help but dream. The sunlight is delicate and soft. I notice familiar sounds that would usually slip by. Children ringing bells on bikes, their parents hurrying them up. The clink and chinks of locks unlocking. The breeze rustling the leaves of the big oak tree in the centre of the yard. How long have I been here now? How long have I lived here? And when did it become so normal - that which is outside my window? Tea sends steam up to wet my nose and as I take a sip with my eyes closed, memories dance in my mind. Windows. The many windows I've had in the many rooms I've rented over the years. And yet, with my many years to come I wonder what kind of window I'll sit by when I'm eighty.

Most likely still sipping a cup of tea, dreaming of all the windows around the world. Remembering windows or perhaps just simply enjoying the window I have. I imagine countryside. Trees in view, but an open landscape. Would that be too lonely? Perhaps living in a small apartment smack bang in the middle of the city would remind me of life. The children going to school, the flow of peak hour traffic. Windows. They always seemed to offer a freedom, which seems so absolutely bizarre because one could simply walk out the front door and be a part of the view rather than sit and watch it from within. Perhaps perching at the window has always induced dreaming.

I can't help but daydream. Sipping a cup of tea on this slow Sunday morning in my big teeshirt, undies and big woolly socks. Replacing the norm - my view that I've grown used to - with a street in (I wonder for a moment...) Paris. Cobblestoned, of course. A bakery just in view on the opposite side of the street, so that I may spy on the French buying their baguettes and croissants on a morning such as this. Old Frenchmen wearing berets, walking out with baguettes under arm. Young Frenchmen collecting croissants for their lovers. Young French women buying pastries, nibbling at one as they walk out onto the street. Of course, there would be smog. And endless noise from the traffic. And shop owners would yell out at each other. And though I imagine it to be fantastic, it too would become the norm after a while. I wouldn't always perch at the window in awe. My mind wanders again, this time to a window of a shack on a beach somewhere with white sand and blue water. Wake up, hair messy and air already warm. A loud ceiling fan chugging away though accomplishing nothing. I'd sit up, rubbing my eyes and stretch my neck just enough to look out at the water. Swell? No swell?

How many of us stand or sit by our windows dreaming of another life. Opportunities to be had. Ah, there we go. "A window of opportunity," because when you look out the window and dream, the opportunities are endless. The world truly is full of wonders. Full of places to go and lives to live, people to meet. You can't be everywhere. You cannot do everything. But I can try - says a voice in my head. I chuckle. Taking my cup of tea I settle into my armchair. Legs curled up, teacup sitting within reach. I take up my notebook and pen, pause for a moment to watch the leaves dancing outside the window. The light picks up the pollen and small insects flying though the air. I close my eyes for a moment, pausing to find the silence from which I write from, and there it is.