The Kitchen window

So, the first window in this series of post on the windows of my house is the kitchen window.

The kitchen window does not have an amazing view: it faces a plain, normal street like so many streets in the centre of Edinburgh. However it's the window through which I look the most. The reason for this is simple: when I eat alone, it's this window I'm facing. When I'm somewhere else, I'm usually doing something that prevents me from staring outside the window. So, that's it: this is the window I 'use' the most.

From using this window so much, I realized something. During my breakfast time, 95% of the people passing in that street take the same direction. That is the direction of many buildings of the university, so you can see all the students going to class or the Uni staff going to work. Of all these people walking in the same direction, some 95% of those walk at the same pace. A fast pace, much faster than the normal pace in Southern Europe. I guess that people in this country don't face that concern we face down South of not wanting to arrive somewhere all sweaty... And walking quickly makes them warmer.

Now: imagine a reasonable crowd of people walking in the same direction at the same pace. From the distance, as I am, one kind of gets the feeling that they're a human mass. They're not a student of business who dreams of being a Steve Jobs, a professor of philosophy thinking of some metaphysical problem, a shopkeeper who feels more like flying to some paradise beach in the Caribbean than to face the customers one more day... They're just a faceless, indistinct mass of people with no feelings or dreams just walking in the same direction.

After I got used to see these people as a mass, the other day I decided, between mouthfuls of cornflakes and toasts with cheese to imagine what these people might be thinking, feeling or dreaming. From one moment to the other 'my crowd' became so much more interesting and diverse! I even began to like the kitchen window much more than I do!