Alpha to Omega

It seems like a strange observation, but anytime I remember an event, I always seem to have been staring out the window.

When M lived in his basement flat there were these great windows that went across the length of the living room and kitchen. The windows themselves slid around in a frame the colour of oxidized metal behind an aged and dusty Venetian blind that was visibly covered in kitchen grease. What was so great was you could sit at the kitchen table and smoke a cigarette and the window would be at eye level, with the grass and the ground and the flowerbed just below it. So the smell, in the spring and summer, was incredible. And because it was near 4 St. there was that busy street noise that makes some people nervous but turns me into a romantic. I found it so relaxing, that I would spend entire evenings in front of the window drinking wine – and we would talk about various unimportant things that were probably trivial and will always remain so because I cannot remember what they were.

And the thing I remember most about another person is that there was this Indian restaurant next door and when it was dark there was a red glow from the sign that would cascade softly through the room and hold you in the warmth of its colour. The room was comfortable because of the window and I would sit up naked in bed and rest my head on the sill and stare out at the traffic below. One day when I came over there were two wine glasses sitting on the windowsill stained with the remnants of the black bottle next to them - a good choice in the way of inexpensive red. Then I forgot what the room looked like and now I only remember what the view from the window looked like. It makes me wonder if I was ever really there.