the Soul of a Window

Currently covered in insulating plastic to serve as an extra barrier against the arctic winds of winter, our two main cabin windows face south, looking out over the windswept, snow-covered ice that is the Unalakleet River. The window sills sit at table height in a cabin that is forty feet up from the riverbank, providing a stunning vista through the treetops.

The windows, large enough to drive a snowmachine through, have a history all their own, a history that began many years before this cabin was built almost three decades ago. The cabin was built just as the village school was being rebuilt which meant there was a pile of out-of-date windows stacked, ready to be taken to the dump. Gregg’s small engine repair shop was next door to the old school and, being that it was summer, he was out in front of the building, smoking his usual cigar while talking fishing stats with buddy, Glen, who was on his lunch break. After approaching the school workers, who were loading the windows into the back of an old Ford pick-up, missing a tailgate, Gregg and Glen walked away, carrying two of the over-sized, plate glass windows. Just like the heavy, treated timber planks he had procured for the floor of the deck, the price was right for those windows – just elbow grease and a sore back.

Ingenuity soon played a roll as they engineered a way to get them out to the cabin, eight miles upriver. As it turned out, Glen drove the boat while Gregg stood in the middle, holding the windows upright, one on either side of him, holding them tight. The next hurdle was getting the windows up the forty foot incline to the deck of the cabin. Much colorful language, slipping, and sliding occurred as they manhandled the heavy glass up the muddy slope from the river – the steps had yet to be built. Once safely on the deck with both windows intact, Gregg then sawed holes for them in the front of the cabin. He had waited until this very moment to carve out the window holes, making sure that he had them in one piece and ready to place.

Windows seem commonplace, yet they are essential. Even when mankind lived in caves, they drew on the walls pictures of things outside, giving them a sort of window to the world they couldn’t see. My youngest daughter, Sarah, used windows as the theme for her wedding in September, a year ago. A simple, yet also complex way of looking at the new beginnings that come with marriage vows, as well as a chance to reflect on how it all came to be. True, in daytime, windows provide a protected view of the world. This protection is not complete, though; cracks can turn into irreparable breaks; it might even shatter in an instant. However, in the darkness, they reflect what is, giving one a chance to shut out the outside world and just be. In the flat, lowlight, gray and sunless days of winter, the window does both and changes with perspective. As I look out right now, I see the birds at the feeder while, at the same time, I see the reflection of the kerosene lamp that is sitting in front of me.

I wonder about this very window I am sitting next to. What stories does it have to tell? What has it seen? What has it reflected? It’s quite possible that this window is older than I am; there is no way to know. Yet, it stands sturdy and strong, not a crack anywhere. Far from airtight, it fogs up when I wash dishes with hot water from the stove. It provides a wide ledge for our treasures of heart-shaped rocks, petrified sea mammal bones, and sea glass washed smooth by the arctic waters from which they came.

Old Webster may define a window as, “an opening in the wall of a building for admission of light and air,” but it is so much more than that.