Open windows

Early morning blog visits had the feel of looking in through lighted windows at lives not my own, a topic touched upon elsewhere recently. Winter's early nightfall gives us reasons to be silent witnesses along darkened streets. The glow of a still-displayed Christmas tree catches the eye, but so does a living room before the curtains are drawn. We have so much in common, simply being part of the same species. The ways in which we differ may be even more vast.

Before 8 a.m. I observed rural landscapes, territory where January has backyards and open country held immobile by ice and snow. Scrolling back through posts I'd missed I found mention of holiday reunions, saw the Nativity cast with a whimsical eye and was taught how to make a proper cup of tea. In another country I discovered job opportunities in pattern and surface design, then learned that a baby held in prayer was home from the hospital. At my first blog stop I was reminded of my mother, how assuming the role of caregiver leaves no part of our ordinary world untouched.

There is a mystical connection in finding so many hearts offered so freely. It is impossible to remain unmoved by some of the experiences that unfold or the reverence with which they are examined. It is a vast planet. Several dozen sites where writers seek meaning and the steadiness of truths that don't shift may not tell us all there is to learn of histories, shared yet separate, but they hint at bonds that hold more tightly than we believed.

Allowing ourselves to be known to strangers, an act I once thought foolish, even dangerous, is neither, but instead so much more. Fear deflates, isolation releases us as identifiable reality steps toward us from these open doors. Our stories may vary in detail but what prompts us to tell them is where out hands meet, proof that the marvelous cannot be overestimated. Honesty rises early and, before its hands are warm, starts typing.