On a cold winter night, I peer through a window into a living room lit only by a stained glass lamp. Aside from the street lights immediately guiding my path and the larger light pollution all around me, I am enveloped in darkness. My gloved hands push down in the pockets of my hand-me-down black puffer. The cold shoots up my pant legs, and the wind whips at my sides. I’ll find a safe haven inside soon. Another room brightened by electricity, warm enough to shed my jacket.
There is something magical about being cozy indoors – alone on my living room couch, amongst bustling bodies in a crowded restaurant, or fidgeting with the register on a slow evening – while the outside world is raging with snow, below freezing temperatures, or rainstorms. This sort of peace is inversely replicated as I walk down a snow-trodden street, looking into every house’s front window.
I confessed this guilty pleasure to my roommate. I spoke of my affinity for looking into houses in the dark. Extravagant mansions and their minimalist decor, college apartments and their tacky posters, brownstones and their dutifully adorned fireplace mantles. My obsession with knowing strangers intimately, though not at all. She told me about the Danish and how they leave their curtains drawn open to prove their respectable place in society. A purposeful, seemingly accidental, act. Enough transparency to confirm the homeowner’s respectable place in society, but not too obviously manufactured to be seen as flaunting.
I’m unsure whether this attitude translates well to Americans. On one hand, most windows show nothing more than a continuous television stream. The average person is probably similar to myself, an enjoyer of natural light who is too lazy to shut blinds when it gets dark. On the other hand, I’ve seen lavish housing that lends itself to peeping behavior. The astonishing floor-to-ceiling windows displaying, for all to see, the confidential confines of homes on busy intersections,s beckoning for glances and begging to be seen.
It really doesn’t matter who the house belongs to, though. Wealthy or not, the beauty of a home lies within the inhabitant. Each window gives an insight to the life behind it. If I’m lucky, I catch bodies dancing or arms passionately flailing in heated discussion. If I'm really lucky, I see a cat perched on the window, glancing outwards as I look inwards.
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