At the Window

The buildings on my block are pretty, but not having to see what’s just in front of me is such a relief. It is foggy outside, which I love. The sky looks like frosted glass. And looking out the window is like looking out a window into another window, or at a photo, which I think is the dream in some way: to observe without worrying about my place in things. Maybe I’m a high-functioning agoraphobe, maybe this is just the post-election poisoning talking, or maybe I’m just an asshole.  

Before I go to bed and before I get up I worry about all of the things I have not done or that I owe. I know that this worry will not derail me because my dad has shown me that it can be handled. Still, this fog helps. And now that I have the weather cooperating with me, as it does with characters in literature, I am better able to enjoy my morning coffee and not think of whatever it is I should be doing to be some better professional version of myself.   

(Also, even with the sun, the carelessness of Goethe in this painting has always seemed to me like the epitome of relaxation.)

Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Goethe at the window of his room in Rome, 1787