-You know, when I was a kid, I liked to look in the windows, – I tell my friend.
-Oh, I still do,- Marina says.- I have favorite ones in a house on 1905 street. Every time I pass his house in a trolleybus, I see a beautiful floor lamp, and then I think that someone is sitting there reading…and it becomes so cozy at heart.
Recently, looking at my windows, I remembered this conversation. And my childhood…
Our parents took us home from kindergarten the same way. At first we walked along one of the central streets of the city. The sidewalks were wide, there weren’t many residential buildings, and auto traffic was a distraction. Then we passed the school. But the school’s large windows didn’t attract my attention. Immediately after school, the road passed a row of 3 five-story buildings with an unknown number of windows in them. I held my mother’s hand, or maybe my father’s (I always liked to hold hands), and threw my head up, trying to look through the first-floor windows. However, the windows were high up, and I was too small to look inside, so I just looked at them.
In one window I could see a piece of ceiling with a chandelier, in the other – part of the furniture. Some of the windows weren’t lit, so no one was home. Sometimes, from the slightly open windows, I could hear the hum of a TV set, or the clink of dishes in the kitchen. Somewhere people were cooking Fry potatoes with onions, and somewhere they were baking buns.
By and large, I saw almost nothing, but it seemed to me that it was cozy, comfortable and calm.
Did I know what coziness was? I probably didn’t even know that word.
We lived in a small house with stove heating and water in the pump on the street. I think that at that time all the apartments in multi-story buildings with central heating and running water seemed cozy to me.
Years passed, and I grew up. Along with the country of residence, my ideas about coziness have changed. Now I appreciate the emotional comfort, the joy of returning home from work, traveling or shopping. Our house rarely smells of Fried potatoes with onions and baked buns*. But my husband and I try to make each other’s lives as comfortable as we can.
What do I need today for peace of mind? Turn off the TV, and put the phone on charge, so I don’t see notifications from social networks. What do I need for comfort? Go outside and look in the window, even if it’s my own one.
*In Russia, fried potatoes with onions are a popular dish, especially if you don’t have money to buy meat.
