It's the heart of summer but there's a change in the wind; it's been blowing rather forcefully, out of the west for weeks. The rustling leaves quake and murmur and stage-whisper outside the window. As the sun creeps along the planks of the deck, I've become familiar with the various angles of light at different hours.
The bathroom has the only east-facing window, and on sunny mornings is almost theatrically lit, like heaven is blessing the souls of our towels. The only west-facing window is in our bedroom, and looks over the deck into the trees. In winter you can read by the orangey glow that reaches through the bare branches. There's a window over the kitchen sink and a big glass sliding door in the living room that face south. The somewhat unfortunate drab grays of the kitchen are thus partially brightened, and a couch is situated to maximize cat-type lounging.
My office has an interior window that communicates with the kitchen, sharing the passing sunlight. Beneath this window I slouch at my desk, chair low, elbows high, because my face tries to get as close as possible to the papers, a sort of attempt at reducing the distance between the extraction and extrusion of words from paper through brain and onto other paper. My office also has a north-facing window, a sort of cardinal point, and passage to places remote. My desk sits comfortably between the two.
