I lived in a house made largely of windows. A choice was made to do away with most of the curtains and blinds so that even under a canopy of leaves, bright sunlight filled each room. At night, the house was lit from within.
What do people call a house like this, a fishbowl? I was on the stage in a house full of windows. I showered more; I dressed for breakfast; I moved through the house, making entrances and exits, an actress playing a role.
Today, I am shrouded behind curtains, or so I think, here on my bed, lounging on a quilt full of giraffes and monkeys with a live napping cat. This is not a show house, but a house for the moment, full of comfort and warmth. My dishes are functional, my blankets warm and worn.
I think we are all creatures in a zoo, in boxes of every sort, observing and being observed. There are routines and patterns and a measuring to our days counted in such small, expansive joys; scripts move us daily to sweep, to wipe up, to turn appliances on, to purchase food, to wash our bodies, to answer our emails.
The keys out are metal and cartoonishly large – rattling around the waist of the guard. He is stopping by your cage now, peering in the back gate, seeing what you are up to…what are you up to? Are you counting your food pellets, or making your bed from the soft underbrush, or are you frozen in space staring?
I, too, am frozen at a window, but not the windows of yesterday. I am in a window full of condensation. I am faceless, standing still and staring out at rain.
What holds me here? Only my one job, to parent. It is a job so important I can hardly face it, yet it is a job on shifting sand.
I start some doing and stop and think about doing again, but instead, I sit here, drinking tea, looking at messes. I’m fixin’ to and startin’ to all day, turning on music, joy goes all the way down to my socked feet as the rain dots my roof just like my thousand, shivery goose pimples.
The only way out is up; there is no fence on the sky. The cage is comfortable, the food is adequate – but above is open. Swimming through miles of goosedown, I imagine the sun still there.
Life as Improv 