Look Outside Your Window
By Yaoyao Shi
The pandemic hit hard, and I have been stuck. Life today is so different compared to a year ago, and I find myself constantly trying to adapt. The pandemic has taught me many things, but one stands out more than the others – I should look outside my window and appreciate the beautiful things in life and nature. When Frank O’Hara and James Schuyler wrote about their own similar experiences, it resonated with me deeply in that it showed and reminded me of the true and healing beauty that can be found everywhere.
On East 49th in Manhattan, both poets looked outside their apartment window. Even though O’Hara saw the same UN building over and over again, the scene constantly changed. In October, he saw “this lavender sky beside the UN Building.” Another night, O’Hara saw a different sky over the building that “is grey / and clear, with pink and / blue shadows under each cloud. / A tiny airliner drops its specks over the UN Building. / My eyes, like millions of glassy squares, merely reflect.” Nature surprises us through its unpredictable and vast beauty. This can be forgotten in the hustle and bustle of both regular life and irregular life, but now that the world has slowed down, an unexpected blessing is that there is time to take a deep breath and appreciate the everyday majesty that is just outside the window. These poems reminded me to take that deep breath, slow down, and peacefully appreciate the world around me.
Similarly, Schuyler observed the world immediately outside and let his mind travel. Through looking at the UN building and the violet sky, he thought about the sun on the sea, the temples he visited, and green waves moving in the violet sea in December. Even though he was trapped inside his apartment, with nature as his inspiration, he was able to find the freedom to reminisce about the beauty that he found along his life’s journey.
I sometimes struggle to remember beauty in my own life, since I can sometimes be caught up in the stress of current events and forget to look up from my computer. Now that the pandemic makes every day identical to me, I find myself lost sometimes. I no longer have the excitement of going out on a Friday night or the joy of planning out an interesting trip. I lose track of time, and the past year feels like just a day. However, by looking outside my window, I both remember and realize the beauty around me, and thus, the days have begun to slow down. What’s most amazing is that I can now see beauty in those normal occurrences in my everyday life, when before I was so caught up in life that I forgot to look. Staring outside my windows is like taking a photo using a disposable camera or like painting an art piece. It is impossible to capture everything in one shot, so I have to look closer and pay more attention to details, and I often discover beauty I have never discovered before. This shows that taking a moment to meditate and appreciate the world around one can be enlightening and soothe the soul.
The two poets, O’Hara and Schuyler, are not the only artists inspired by the beautiful. Van Gogh also looked outside his window. He saw the starry night just before the sunrise and café terrace in the evening. Signac looked outside his window and captured the beauty of the port of Saint-Cast and the port of Saint-Tropez. Matisse opened his apartment window in Collioure and saw sailboats on the water at sunset. If all those artists were able to appreciate beauty just by looking outside their windows, so can we.
A profound moment of beauty also struck me recently as I looked outside my window. It was at 5pm on a Thursday in Vermont. I finished all my classes and looked up and out. The sun was setting and painted the sky into a color gradient of violet, yellow, and red. It stopped snowing, and the powdery snow from yesterday was slowly melting. Some snow was still hugging the tree branches like babies who would never want to leave their moms. How beautiful it is! I wonder if my friends in Pennsylvania saw the same sunset, and I wonder if my parents in Shanghai have had a snow day yet this winter. Looking outside my window, I felt so calm and amazed, and I felt so blessed to receive the gift from nature. I took a deep breath and centered myself, feeling at peace in the world for the first time in a while.
Look outside your window, and you’ll be amazed at the beauty you find.
