The View From My Window

I used to sit there,

 perched on that 'corner cubical' swivel chair.

I would stare out the window,

wistfully daydreaming that it were smaller,

trimmed in a white-washed wood frame and

 accented with a bright red and white

gingham curtains.

In my work hour reverie,

I would be standing at my kitchen sink

looking out that gingham clad window,

watching my children frolic in the backyard,

 apple pie marinating in the oven

while my amorous husband was whispering

sweet nothings in my perfumed ear.

I was a single gal looking through the "window" into

a world of domesticity I easily crafted and cared to be in far, far,

far more than the corporate one I was in.

Now here I stand (in my bath robe), a mere decade later.

Red cherry curtains framing my view from the kitchen sink.

Usually when I am standing here,

it is no more than 20 seconds, as either

I see a child about to be broadsided by a

swing swung at curve ball speeds out the window

or I turn around to find one (or two) one year olds perched

precariously on a chair in attempts to crawl up onto

the kitchen table (or about 2 billion other possible scenarios,

none of which lend themselves to reveries at any window).

I do not wish for another window, but I some times

long for the days when I had freedom to tap into my creativity whenever I pleased.

Finish a project. Start a project. Complete a sentence. Use three or more two-syllable words in a sentence without having to think them out first. Get a second look at the stop light from a cute guy in convertible beside me {gee whiz? when's the last time THAT happened? ....hmmm....well, there was that cat call that I got five years ago from one of the orange-clad members of the prison chain gang picking up trash along an intersection...or that other instance from 4 years ago, when I was hit on in a chic coffee shop. I recall telling my husband all about it, but carefully omitting the part about him being 95 years old with an obvious eye twitch. I digress.}

Seriously, though. There are moments when I am so neck-deep in mothering my five that I  wistfully create another scene based on what I perceive some one else's view to be  (picturesque vacations along the shore (with or without an Au Pair), daily time to reflect and pray, children with attention spans that allow for crafts, book reading and adventuring wherever the day takes them, etc. etc.). I actually have the nerve to create another view, filling-in-the-blanks of how I think some other woman does it and then WISH for the view I just imagined up!

It is downright ungrateful and distasteful window watching...especially considering that I have so many beautiful things happening right outside my own.

No doubt there is a friend who is unable to conceive that looks at my world and sighs wistfully, or a woman in the midst of losing her child and would give ANYTHING to impart the health my children have to her own, or a woman who gets absolutely nothing but grief from her husband, when I have love directed to me from mine.

I am a slow learner and what I am learning slowly is that while my environment may be busy beyond belief, and does not match the easy-breezy scenario I used to craft during my corporate years...

How I take in my view

is determined by

what

 I choose

to

FOCUS

on.

It is not all that complicated. Yet in the haste and grind of daily living, it is all too easy for the eyes of my mind to start wishing for a different view, an easier view...like so-and-so has (but probably doesn't really).

I desire to embrace ALL of the characteristics that make up my current view. I do not mean that I need to necessarily LIKE all of them, but to know that everything- the good, the bad and the ugly- is a part of the bigger picture...and to not loose sight of the view that is beyond my kitchen window.