Window.

The picture I painted, a window with a girl sitting in the sill, bland face staring out into the black, was not meant to be a statement of my teenage loneliness and sadness as my therapist mother analyzed so quickly with such a short and sure declaration.

In truth, I had sat there so many moments, resting in the white uncomfortable brim to the night, watching the stars through the limbs of the tallest tallest trees, watching the warm summer air lift leaves and set them down again, as if shaking hands. I sat there with my weathered paisley journal, feet tucked into the corner, the top of my head pressed upon by the frame. I was too tall. In time, I turned and stretched my legs down to the floor of the balcony, a balcony not meant for men, not meant for a girl of 14 to walk upon. The covering, the barrier against nature, felt chalky underneath my feet, and I gingerly approached the railing. I leaned out, resting my elbows upon the white-washed wood, knees against the hard, safe boards. How could anything be so quiet? How could the world be so still? I heard nothing but the slight sketching of leaves, a car rumbliing, miles in the distance. I saw a streetlamp below, the gleam of our tarred summer gravel street, the grass, sidewalk, lawn. I inhaled the smell of oil, the sweet of cut grass, the dream of this moment. My loneliness here was not a prison. Here, upon this porch of sorts, it was the moment of freedom I'd awaited every moment of the day. The real pang of loneliness and despair was felt while roaming the halls of my school, or sitting quietly in sunday church. I went back again and again, no matter where I was to this, this moment, this quiet air. I turned back to my window, the golden light reflecting off of the crumbling green pastoral wall paper, the creamy ivory of my french provincial chest of drawers, the faint whisper of Natalie Merchant and her 10,000 Maniacs floating across the room. In I climbed, sorrowfully leaving the night behind, one leg, one head and shoulder, then the other leg. I closed the window, crawled under the covers...lights out. So, would start another day and another, but no matter the headache and heartache of events and conversation... I would always have this place. This quiet place of my own.