Lessons from Looking Out a Window |

By Gregory Meyer
November 25, 2016

My wife and I are in Lexington to visit her brother and his family, which includes three energetic nephews. I had the opportunity to go to the eldest nephew’s school yesterday for a Thanksgiving party.

I hadn’t been back inside the halls of a public school in more than fifteen years, so walking down those halls yesterday felt strange, like a long forgotten memory returning to my mind. There was my nephew, sitting at his desk surrounded by other kids just as I was at his age. He has his whole school life ahead of him. Would they be good years for him? Would he look back at them fondly?

Sitting there as my nephew performed his poem with his class, my mind went back to many years ago when I first went to kindergarten and grade school. There were some good memories, but for many years it was a miserable time for me. I wasn’t the best student, and from how things were heading it’s perhaps surprising that I’m even writing this to you.

I bring this up because one distinct memory I have growing up was staring out the window and looking outside at the world around me. I would sit for hours looking outside the glass and watch as people drove past the school or walked their dog. I remember there was a cemetery across from my grade school, and I’d keep a watchful eye out for any translucent ghosts shambling up from their graves and heading for my school. Believe me, I’d be the first to know about it if it happened.

My teachers would catch onto my habit of staring out the window and move me to the other side of the room, away from my beloved window. Yet even here they couldn’t stop my imagination. I’d doodle on my papers and create my own worlds on good old College Rule notebook paper. They’d often be based on the cartoons I was watching at the time, but I’d still make them my special places to hide away from the world that demanded I conform to what they wanted me to be.

Even now, here at this Starbucks, I’ll catch myself staring out the window looking at the stone brick across the little drive-through beside me. My eyes are drawn upwards towards the plants sitting at the top of the brick, all still with their autumn leaves on them. At work, to clear my head, I’ll go outside on a walk and take in the scenery around me. After a few hours of mindlessly entering data, it’s good to refresh my mind and let my imagination run free.

See, there’s something that my teachers didn’t know back when I was a student. They assumed I was wasting my time when I stared out the window, but I wasn’t. I was stretching and expanding my imagination. While I had yet to pick up a pen (or keyboard) and write my first tale, my mind began thinking about adventures and far off places beyond the concrete walls of my school. Don’t get me wrong, the lessons I learned at school were important, but I was also learning things that a teacher couldn’t teach me with a textbook. My times gazing out of the window, playing in the backyard, or exploring my neighborhood were just as valuable to me as the time I spent in front of a chalkboard.

Like most kids from the 80’s and 90’s, I adored Calvin and Hobbes. I’d spend countless hours sitting on the couch with one of my Calvin and Hobbes books and read for hours. I felt a real kinship with Calvin and how he felt about being in school. Calvin struggled in school, never completed his homework, didn’t have many friends, and found himself in trouble more than out of it. I identified with Calvin more than any other character growing up, or as I think about it, even now. His struggles felt real to me, and he handled them much like I did.

But Calvin and I also had another thing we shared; we both had an escape. Calvin had these woods behind his house he could escape in with Hobbes. There he had many of his adventures, where he could be himself and use his imagination to his fullest. I didn’t have woods, but I had a backyard I could run around in and make my own. So I did, and with it I leveled my imagination stat. Here in this world I could be the hero, and I didn’t have to worry about things like math and gym class.

Even in my college years, I’d escape my dorm room with my CD player and go on walks out back in the woods behind my campus. This was out in the Ozarks, and I was surrounded by the beautiful hills and landscape of Missouri. It was beautiful, and to this day I can remember how the trees looked in autumn, the long abandoned married housing that was slowly falling apart, and the streams and caves I’d pass on my walks. I think even Calvin would’ve been jealous of the scenery at my disposal. The mystery and sense of discovery only fueled my imagination. I’d discover new things on my walks, like a long abandoned and rusted truck, or the ham radio shack hidden away from the rest of campus. It energized the adventurer in me.

I don’t get to explore much these days. The onset of adulthood and responsibility means I have less time to wander freely with my thoughts. It’s funny, though I’m old enough to drive myself anywhere I want, time and necessity dictates that I stay put at home or work. Gone are the days where I could ride my bike around town and discover the hidden places of my hometown. When I travel, I’m almost overwhelmed by this inward craving to dive back into my pondering wanderings, exploring and taking in new places at my own pace. Yet time is scarce, and before I can let my mental legs stretch and go off on their own, it’s time to move on.

I’d be depressed if I wasn’t a writer. I haven’t forgotten the lessons I learned from day dreaming when I was younger. They prepared me for this day, and I draw on those experiences when I craft my stories. I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without those times I had to myself. I only wish I had more opportunities to leave this bickering and spiteful world behind and go immerse myself in the world around me for the next great adventure.