Perspective, they say, makes all the difference. I don’t know who “they” are, or what possessed them to say it, but I think they may be right.
Take the perspective, or point of view, that I see from my desk. When it changes, I change, too.
Years ago, when I worked as a reporter in a newsroom, I wrote in a cubicle that was, I swear, smaller than the crate that holds my son’s two yellow Labs.
Unlike Chloe and Abbe, who have ample room to romp and do so with abandon, I had to roll my chair straight into my desk and back out without turning.
Not that I minded. I’ve never needed much room to write. Mostly, I just need a deadline. But a view makes a difference.
After my column became syndicated, I was free to work at home in my pajamas, at a desk in a bay window overlooking the backyard. Instead of staring at the wall of a cubicle, I looked out on a postage-stamp view of Monterey Bay, glittering silver and blue in the distance; and down below, I kept watch on the basketball court where my three children shot hoops, terrorized the dog and tried to maim themselves and their friends.
There was never any shortage of topics to write about.
I wrote happily for years from that vantage point, until the dog grew old and the kids grew up and their dad died of cancer.
Then I learned how to be alone in a four-bedroom house with five sets of dishes, shelves filled with Little League trophies and faded photo albums and a cat that didn’t like me.
Honestly? I wrote pretty happily from that view, too. Well, except whenever the cat bit me. Happiness is not so much about surroundings. It’s more about what’s within.
When I remarried and moved with my new husband to the last place on Earth I ever expected to live — Las Vegas — he insisted that the view from my desk needed to be one that made me feel at home. So he spent hours (and nearly lost his religion) filling a wall in my office with family photos — shots of my kids and their dad, my parents and grandparents, different places, different times in my life.
I wish you could see it. It reminds me of where I’ve been and all the people I’ve come from. It tells me who I am.
I love that wall. But I am not looking at it today. Today I have a whole new perspective.
Lately, we’ve enjoyed a wave of visitors. My three children, their others and my 4-month-old grandson were here for four days at Christmas. And my husband’s two boys and their girlfriends arrived today.
Our house is fine for two. For six, it’s like a refugee camp. To make room, we moved my desk temporarily from my office to the bay window in our bedroom.
So instead of seeing my usual wall of familiar faces, I’m looking out across the desert to mountains covered in snow.
This morning I watched hummingbirds and finches and quail make quick work of the feeders my husband had filled.
At evening, a neon-pink sunset spilled over Sin City and turned the desert into a sea of lights.
And tonight, a grinning moon got tangled up in a palm tree, then slid across the sky and hid behind the mountains. Some people live and die and never see such wonders.
It’s easy to stick with what’s familiar, to look at things the way we’ve always seen them. But we’ll never know what we may be missing until we open our eyes to a different view.
Perspective tells us where we have been, but at best it tells us where we’re going. At worst, it’ll tell you what it told me: Your windows could use a good wash.
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Contact Sharon Randall at www.sharonrandall.com.