being here

friends, big and small

Zoralee loves the window. She watches cars, bikers, and joggers go by, the two dogs next door, and the schoolchildren on the playground at recess. Right now she’s watching a landscape crew replace our fence. My sister made mention that this was a happy thought, Zoralee being entertained by the goings on outside, but also sad to think that her previous window experiences were so measly – a great big meadow of very little excitement.

Our rhythms here are already so different. No chickens, no horses, no wild turkeys or deer roaming through each day. No animal life, per say, to derive context from. We can only see a patch of sky, instead of the weather coming from miles away. It's ironic, since we're in Alaska, the last frontier, but we live downtown in Alaska's largest city, something we always thought would be fun to do. We can see the wilderness, to be sure. The mountains are already covered in snow, tall and wild. But at our house, we hear traffic, the voices of walking companions, and every couple of hours, the screams of playing, teasing, energetic children. We are loving to see our family and long time friends again.

Our closest neighbors are a couple that Jason went to school with before. They’ve already given us some carrots, squash, and potatoes from their greenhouse! Our kitchen window looks directly into theirs. Like the guy said, at first it’ll be awkward catching each other’s eyes, but, we’ll just waive and go about things, and pretty soon we won’t even think about it. Zoralee, in fact, has already waived at them. Jason feels he has to throw on a shirt to get a snack though, and I’ll have to be cognoscente of where in the house I am talking to myself; they’re close enough to know I’m not wearing a Bluetooth. Gets you remembering how funny it is that we all live in these house bubbles, peeking into each other’s lives through neat, silent, two by three feet squares.