The staring-from-the-window side of writing

Somerset Maugham had a fine view from his upstairs writing room in his home in the south of France. Sooner than stare into it, however, his desk faced the inner wall. The view, for him, was a distraction.

I’m the opposite of that. Staring through the window is a vital part of my writing practice. The window has to have an open aspect, with a view into the natural world. That view then enters me somehow, it’s nurturing, and the next passage of my writing is inscribed against the backdrop of the landscape first of all, before I ever get to write it down.

I love the aspect from these Santa Fe windows. The climate is bizarre just now, with sun hot enough to bathe in one moment and a squall of snow the next. The option the weather has taken up right at this moment is the hail one, white pellets bouncing across red earth.

The birdfeeders are active. The grey juniper titmouse is my current delight, with its crested head and its eagerness. Old favourites return as well, like the evening grosbeak, the jays, the scarlet house finches, the chickadees. Animals have walked across my view as well these last couple of days, the ground squirrels, the jackrabbits, and a pair of coyotes. I almost stepped on a rabbit yesterday. It merely moved forward a few feet and kept on munching blades of grass, not bothered by my presence.

It struck me the extent that rabbits have disappeared from our lives. Nobody used to live without the accompaniment of rabbits. I’ve come to see how much I need them in my writing view. They’re like a barometer of the natural world. Without so much as a rabbit, you ain’t go it.

(The picture is the northerly one from our Santa Fe home, from the library window)