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A Room With A View
We all need a room with a view - at least one like I have.
Several years ago as we contemplated adding on to our house or moving to accommodate our ever growing brood, one of the reasons I was against building an addition was that I knew it would disturb a unique view out one of our back windows that I saw as “irreplaceable.” It was a simple view really – nothing more than a long look out our bathroom across our back yard up past an old Black Walnut tree to the mountain beyond.
But the view when taken as a whole was somehow something more. I’m not sure I can put my finger on it exactly, but when you sat on the edge of our bathtub everything framed within the window just seemed to be in its proper place – from the old tool shed, to the swing set to the white pines that whispered in the wind that all was well – everything just seemed to “BE” as it was meant to be. I found it to be a special place where I could sit in the morning as the sun begin its slow journey up and over the mountain and reflect and pray and start my day with a sense that God was indeed at work in the world and maybe, when I was brave enough to imagine it, even in me.
After several months of debate, however, it was finally decided that we would indeed build an addition, and as sacred as the view and the morning peace I found there might have been, it would have to go. When the workmen took the sledgehammers to the window frame, I stayed in my basement office so I wouldn’t have to watch. In fact there were several aspects of the pre-addition house that I hated to see go, but sometimes the basic need for square footage (in our case bedrooms) must take precedence over everything else.
But being the “Architect of Record” (as well as slave labor when needed) there were a few things I could do to compensate for some of the characteristics that would be lost and one of those was the last minute addition of a bay window in the new family room. After a bit of study I decided that perhaps we should continue the bay window shape up the side of the house, which would have the benefit of adding a new bay window in our master bedroom as well. The unique thing was that this would locate the upper bay in the exact location of the old bathroom window except it would be about twenty feet further out on the new back wall of the house.
My first thought while sketching out this possibility was, “Gee, I wonder if it will provide anything of the glorious perspective of the old view out of the bathroom?” But I had my doubts. New perspectives are generally just that and capturing anything of the old seemed like too much to hope for. But the concept of two bay windows worked well in the plans so it was decided that we would incorporate them into the new design.
As soon as the second level sub-floor was stable enough to walk on, I quickly ventured out to the place I estimated the window would be. I tried to “frame it up” in my mind and imagine the view out towards the black walnut and mountain beyond but even if the window had been in place, the yard was a conflagrated mess of clay mounds, debris and construction equipment. In lieu of inspiring peace, the view instilled more of a feeling of depression born of chaos. I’d simply have to wait and see how things turned out.
And about three months later I finally got my answer.
The floors were all finished, the paint dried, the new fixtures hung bright and dustless and the windows sparkled in their clarity. The yard outside hadn’t fully recovered but the “sod fairies,” had arrived and put down a fresh green carpet of grass in place of the earthen brown moonscape. It was one of the first mornings in our new bedroom and I got up early to inspect the view as the sun rose once again over the mountain and our “old but very new” home. I sat on the bench provided by the new bay window and looked out towards the growing light. It took only a few moments to grasp the new reality.
The light that entered the large single middle pane of glass was now unencumbered by the slats of the old style window. The distant hemlock hedge was closer – in fact everything was - and the immediacy of the textures provided by the multiple evergreen trees and nearby holly tree provided a remarkable feeling that one was already outside. I looked up across the yard towards the side of Mill Mountain as the early morning sun split the clouds and the distant tree line on top. I immediately noticed that the one house that had once partially blocked part of the mountain was all but obscured by the new angle. It was as though an artist had painted the old scene but then taken the liberty to make it even brighter and better and more complete.
But perhaps the most inspiring new addition was that the black walnut and its three distinct trunks now provided a perfect frame for the dogwood tree now in full bloom just beyond it. The new gray tool shed stood like a sentry in perfect balance - the white pines whispering still that all would be well. The same feeling of everything being in right relation to everything else came back in all its previous glory and more, and I knew that we had been doubly blessed.
Everyone needs a room or place with such a view – where the noise and demands of the world fade and it is easy to know that both the sun and the Son have risen and that life can and does begin anew . . .
Wherever yours may be, I hope you find yourself there this Easter - and in many a day to come.
- Stuart