The view

from my window

Our house faces the garden and I am forever gratefully for whoever built it, nearly 100 years ago, that they ensured the main living spaces faces the garden. Most houses built around this time tend to face the street. Our house over the course of it’s life has had many configurations. Bathrooms have been moved. Sun rooms added with front doors becoming internal as a results. I believe when it was first built our storage room of the freezer, old jackets and the vacuum cleaner, was a separate annex to the house. We should possibly have added a deck when we did renovations, perhaps some french doors that open out into the garden, but at the time we had a budget (which is so tiny compared to what we would pay now) which meant we wanted to keep things easy. I do have times when I think I would have liked to have done this. I love the idea of indoor outdoor flow, of night time air floating into the house in summer and dogs roaming at will. Regardless, as I stand with a cup of tea in my hand, watching the early morning light creep over the valley, I think french doors would be amazing but I am just as happy with my big windows.

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‘How sweet my life now
in its descent to the valley,
the valley itself not mist-covered
but fertile and tranquil.
So that for the first time I find myself
able to look ahead, able to look at the world,
even move toward it.’

Louise Glũck
Descent to the Valley

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My Aunt when she visits from overseas always comments on the view from our tiny living room. There is a big bay window and because we live on a very slopping street (parallel with Baldwin street one of the steepest streets in NZ), we can look out over neighbours roofs and just see across the valley, where it is mostly forest. Most of the year it is an abundance of green which is so calming to look at. It is a view that I, like my aunt, never get tired of.

This view is my space for seasonal check ins. When I look across today, it is slowly turning the delicious tones of Autumn. There is a golden hue shadowing across the trees that will soon lose their leaves. In the coming months they will be skeletons of grey standing like ghosts amongst the evergreens. I have been waiting for this moment when it all changes because it is beautiful to watch. Earlier in the week a mist hung over the valley, adding an element of mystery to the view. This tendril of mist against the soft rusty tones of autumn spoke of mystery and moors. There is a house amongst the trees and I wonder if they are aware of how many eyes watch from across the valley. We are far enough away to see just the shape and silhouette of the house as it looks out across the valley, nothing more.

Come spring the view will change again. They skeleton trees will find their new seasons clothing in the form of emerging leaves. Come summer we will hunt out trees looking for that faint whiff of a white bloom of the mānuka and kānuka, a sign that the honey flow is on and we can breath a sigh of relief that the swarm season is over. The garden follows along in it’s own way, rising and crumbling with the season. As I look today it is quietly sinking, returning to the earth, the winter calling it to sleep. I feel so grateful for this view. It gives perspective and shape to the garden and I guess my day. Some days it can be my only connection to nature. On those days all I do is take in the view and for a moment stand still and just look.