Window etymology: From the Old Norse of the Middle Ages came vindauga — vindr, which means “wind,” and auga, or “eye.” Wind eye, harkening back to days when windows often contained no glass. In modern times, window on the world and window of opportunity are opened, figuratively so.
Ah, window shopping!
So gratifying to spy
sin ganas* to buy.
*without desire
Dreaming of Windows
Looking out a window in search of something: signifies the need to find something missing in your life or a solution to a problem. To dream that you are looking out a window at something or someone may indicate that you need to take a much closer look at some situation or relationship.
If you dream of closing the drapes, you may be blocking out worries and problems, shielding yourself from the world.
To see a window washer in your dream could represent your ability to clarify a situation and shed perspective on an issue.
A closed window in a dream may signify abandonment.
Mystical Windows
A joyful scene viewed from a window foreshadows happiness ahead. But if you witness a dreadful event trouble will affect you. A broken window signals disappointment.
Wind Eye Psych 101
Sigmund Freud says:
Windows = feminine
sexuality.
(Although he said the same thing
of boxes, rooms, and bottles.)
Words for Windows
“I can’t play bridge. I don’t play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn’t seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window.”
~Alice Munro
“If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull down the shade.”
~Tom Peters
“Where ever I am I always find myself looking out the window wishing I was somewhere else.”
~Angelina Jolie
“A morning glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.”
~Walt Whitman
Your Window Assignment
Write about windows. Window dressing. Window shopping. Windows of opportunity. How when a door closes, a window opens. What do windows mean to you?
Pick up your fast-writing pen and your notebook and write without stopping, without crossing out. Write with abandon. For 15 minutes. Now.
Sounds like fun! ^^ I’m game.
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Awesome. Glad you found us. If you write a piece on your blog, link back here so we can read it.
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ybonesy, really fun Topic. I could probably write for days about windows. Will be fun to do these Writing Practices. What amazing photos, too. I like the Smokin’Showgirl in Santa Fe. And that last shot with the blue frame and gnarled wisteria — so cool. I can’t believe how huge that wisteria is! How old do you think it is to be the size of a tree trunk?
You won’t believe it, but Liz and I went to a home improvement fair at a community center near us last weekend. And guess what kind of workshop we went to? One on all kinds of windows! It’s amazing how many kinds there are: casement, awning, double hung, piano, gliding, picture, bay, hopper, jalousie, sliding, bay and bow just to name a few.
Here are a couple of links that explain some of these types of windows:
CALFINDER – Window Types (LINK)
Replacement Windows KEY (LINK)
We’ve got old double hung windows and there was a workshop on how to make them more energy efficient without replacing them. Pretty reasonable, too. We also learned that you don’t get the home improvement tax credit on the windows unless you replace them. There are all kinds of energy efficient standards the window frames and glass have to meet before they qualify.
The workshop was really informative though. We learned a ton about windows!
I guess that’s the practical side of windows. And I love all the mystical symbolism about windows in the Topic piece. It makes me wonder how the certain shapes and ways windows open and close (slide, push, crank, pull up or down) affect the mystical qualities.
BTW, I hope I dream about a window washer in the next few days. I could use some clarity!
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You’re kidding, QM!?! A windows workshop? Who would have thunk?
I thought about getting into all the different window, because you know, when you do a search on “window quotes,” most of the hits are companies who will give you quotes on replacing all the windows in your home. 8) So, I started poking around in some of those sites, but then realized that was just going to be too darned much work given what I had time for.
Maybe in your Writing Practice on this, you can elaborate on the different types of windows. It is sort of fascinating. The windows in our home are kind of cool, from the late 50s/early 60s, and the locks on them are like little dials. I’d never seen anything like them before.
QM, as for the photos, well, we had a relaxing day in Santa Fe last weekend–Dee, myself, and three other moms and their 13-year-olds. We ate lunch at the lovely La Casa Sena [LINK], which is in one of the many courtyards on Palace Avenue, right off the main plaza. The wisteria plant was in the courtyard next door, near a famous restaurant called The Shed [LINK], and I would guess that the wisteria was decades old. The courtyard itself is probably 300 years old, but I don’t know how long wisteria grows. Isn’t it gnarly? I loved it.
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I bought the house in which I live because of all the windows…big windows that let in lots of light. I have windows in every room and sometimes three or more. QM will see when she visits. Windows make a house alive.
I don’t know how I would stand living in a place that did not have windows every where. Maybe I would become use to the gloom, but I’m not sure.
Even the dark, gray days of January and February are more tolerable if I can sit inside and look out the windows at the winter weather.
Hurrah for windows of all shapes and sizes.
I have an art project that I plan to do with the windows I replaced throughout the house. I want to paint the individual panes and hang the windows in the back yard and on the porch as art.
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I re-read the post and didn’t see anything about “The eyes are the windows to the soul.” So windows in houses are the eyes to the outside world (if you are inside) and eyes to the world inside the house (if you are outside).
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“Wind eye, harkening back to days when windows often contained no glass.”
I love this, the idea that a window was a wind eye. Yes, how windows are like eyes.
There are way too many ideas about windows playing in my head, and I haven’t had enough sleep to pull the thoughts together. But yes, I think windows is an excellent writing prompt when my brain is less mushy. (These nights upon nights dealing with insomnia are taking their toll, I’m afraid.)
But I love this post on windows and the photography, too. I checked out the photos on flickr–ccol showgirl. Looks like she’s up to her tricks.
Coincidentally, I read Munro’s quote about not playing bridge, just looking out windows only yesterday.
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Bob, I have to agree, I love windows in a home. Lots of them. And preferably East- and South-facing in the winter so that the sunlight comes in and warms. Right now I am sitting at the kitchen table with the eastern sun on my back, warming me up.
My favorite time of day in our house is early morning, up to about 9:30. Sun streams in a bank of eastern windows. I have to say, though, that parts of the house are more cavelike, a dark hallway, and rooms with only North-facing windows.
Oh, I wanted to mention, too, that I was researching the placement of a bed in a bedroom for good feng shui, and I noticed that one the main characteristics about positive bedroom energy is that you don’t set the bed directly across from a door. But it didn’t say anything about a window, and I was curious about whether that was a given or whether doors and windows are in fact considered differently in the art of feng shui. If anyone knows, please shed light on this.
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Bob, there is a Mexican form of folk art that is about window painting, but I couldn’t find any good links on it. We have one old hotel here where the windows of the restaurant are all painted, not fully, like a stained glass, but designs painted on the glass. Flowers and stylized animals and symbols—all in a sort of Mallolica style. That’s what I thought of when I read about your art project.
That and the movie Because of Winn Dixie,” where the little girl Opal visits her old friend’s house (played by Cicely Tyson) and Gloria, the old friend, has all these empty colorful bottles and glasses hanging from her trees like windchimes. Beautiful. I imagine your porch will look something like that when you finish your project.
When Jim’s parents moved out of their home, and then the home got torn down, we went in and salvaged all the Mexican glass lamps and lanterns that had been used for lights. Jim said his father had actually gone into Mexico to buy all those light fixtures. I have them in South-facing window in our entry way, and when the light shines on them it’s magical.
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Bo, this is a great topic for a photographer, too. Just the notion of windows as eyes in buildings. I’ve seen structures where the windows definitely appear to be eyes, whether by design or not. I hope your eyes (blurry as they are right now) spy some interesting window shots. Keep us posted.
Also, don’t you love Alice Munro? I’ve only read her short stories—her stuff is published pretty often in the The New Yorker. I know nothing about her, but I’d love to know more. And her quote is so self-deprecating. Well, she doesn’t play bridge or tennis, but man, she can write!! And stare out windows. 8)
Sorry to hear about the insomnia. I can imagine that it gets hard to funciton after a certain number of sleepless nights.
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“Looking out a window in search of something: signifies the need to find something missing in your life or a solution to a problem.”
I don’t know if I am in search of something when looking out a window. I have my computer desk situated under a dormer window. The window from the outside of the house pokes out the roof and looks like an eye. This window I have looked out every day throughout the seasons. I have to turn my head up, and looking up I see the old Chinese elm saved from the chopping block and the ever-changing sky. Throughout the seasons I have gazed, pondered and been lost while my eyes looked out the eye of the house. Gee, I’m in a muse mood, and the mere mention of windows provokes the muse.
Actually, I’ve been thinking about windows as I love the metaphorical of windows while looking at actual windows. Sometimes on… oops, almost wrote window shoots… photo shoots, I snap photos of windows… inside and outside. I’d like to write about this subject of windows. A wonderful topic to let it rip in the wordsmith.
Perhaps I have been searching for a solution to a problem while staring out the window. Hmm…
Wonderful post, pictures, and comments.
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Your comment, Anna, made me realize that it would have been good to include in the assignment a “Just staring” meditation of looking out the window before letting it rip with the wordsmith.
I have my desk next to a window, too, and I often look out the window at the huge cottonwood tree. My very first piece of artwork as an adult was a shot of me darkened and standing slightly behind a curtain, looking out a window. It symbolized the lost space I was in at that time, so young and unsure of who I was, wishing I were somewhere else or someone else.
But like you, I enjoy looking inside windows, too. There’s a quality of vouyerism in that case, being able to peek in on something.
Thanks for your comment. Let us know if you post something on your blog—photo and/or writing. Would love to see what the muse inspired.
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Great post and pictures, yb.
Behind my computer screen is a bank of three windows. Looking out I see the trees in my backyard, a Ponderosa Pine, closest, and a huge Colorado blue spruce and Canadian red chokecherry, farther away. I can also see the birdbath and feeder. I like to watch the birds and squirrels from this vantage point.
On a day like today when the wind is causing the spruce to flail its branches wildly, as if sending me a distress signal, I am happy to be inside looking out, hearing, but not feeling the wild wind. That is one great thing about windows, they allow me to witness big weather, rain and snow storms, big wind, gathering tornado clouds, without having to be out in it. I have a 14-foot tall arched window in my living room. In the summer, I watch thunderclouds roll in from the west. In the winter, I see the blizzard coming, before the snow begins to fall.
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I love this topic. And the way you presented it on the page, with all the different quotes and visuals. I’m inspired.
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yb, I had wanted to comment on this post since I first read it. I look through my windows every day & not because I have the need to find something, but mostly to glimpse at the trees & wildlife that flourish here. Yesterday was a shopping day for me & as I went to the car I could hear two birds talking back & forth from different parts of our land. I stopped & listened, smiling I got in my car & set off to save money.
I’ve been blessed over the years of window of opportunity. I realized that some time ago. I love this topic. Food for thought. Thanks! D
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[…] writing was a response to the post, Writing Topic-Window, by […]
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Yb, I’ve been meaning to comment on this post as well. Better late than never! This is a fabulous topic!! 🙂 Also, the photos are lovely and the information about the meaning/symbolism of windows is fascinating.
I’m so behind on my writing. There are great topics out there I want to write about, but school and work keep getting in the way. Nevertheless, I try to snag a few moments to meditate on a haiku/senryu as you can tell on the Haiku Challenge page.
For me, when I look out a window, I always wish I was somewhere else. Other times, I’m just staring out the window, meditating on solving problems, feeling something is missing or missing someone, or just looking at how nature plays shadows and geometric shapes with everything else. My brain is kind of mathematical and scientific that way. I love combining symbolism and art with science and math. So yeah, this post made a lot of sense to me.
I would really love to do a free-write on this, and then compose a poem out of this when I have time!! LOL
Enjoyed this post, yb!! 🙂
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P.S. I forgot to say that I found something about windows and feng shui.
http://www.chinatownconnection.com/feng_shui_article.htm
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A~Lotus, interesting link about Feng Shui with regards to windows and curtains. Thanks for the response to ybonesy’s question in her earlier comment. I was kind of curious about that, too:
—-Windows are best when opening outwards. If a window opens inwards make sure it doesn’t face the West, which is the direction that signifies death or ending. In that case, block negative chi with an outward facing mirror or a plant with round leaves.
—-Octagonal and arched windows are considered good Feng Shui.
—-Pull the curtains back during daytime to allow sunlight to lighten your house and give the area positive energy.
—-Keep your curtains closed at night. Don’t leave your windows exposed into night as it is considered to bring bad luck.
It reminds me that I always close all the shades at night, well, even at dusk. I can’t stand the thought of people staring in at me when I’m unaware. I don’t know how people live in those fishbowl houses that are mostly glass and no shades.
Liz used to leave most of her windows open at night until I moved in. Now we always “batton down the hatches.” Or as we used to sometimes say when driving through some rural towns at night, “This little town looks really buttoned up.” Sometimes I say, “Time to button up.” 8)
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Yes, A~Lotus, thanks for that link. The piece about West being the direction of death—well, that was one thing I read about bed positioning, too. That the only direction you want to avoid is your head facing West.
QM, I close the shutters (we don’t have drapes, only shutters throughout the house) in the bedroom and in my writing room at night, but we leave them open in the great room and kitchen. Those windows face the bulk of the land, and unless someone creeps on to the property, you can see that a light is on but you can’t see the details of the inside of the house from the road. But sometimes I feel weird about coyotes or other wildlife looking in on us.
A~Lotus, I’m looking forward to reading your writing on Windows. I hope you find an opening in your work and school.
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breathepeace, wow, it’s windy here, too. My haiku this morning, in fact, was about noticing the wind from the window.
I loved your comment—it was a Writing Practice. Especially this line: On a day like today when the wind is causing the spruce to flail its branches wildly, as if sending me a distress signal, I am happy to be inside looking out, hearing, but not feeling the wild wind.
…as if sending me a distress signal… oh, can I ever picture that. The high winds must be distressing to the trees. One good thing about the winds, though, which Jim reminded me of yesterday, is that they cause the last of the dead leaves to blow off the cottonwood, allowing new growth to better bloom.
Oh, that reminds me, wind is my least favorite type of weather in New Mexico (especially combined with heat and dryness). Same with my mom; she says the wind makes her irritable. And Jim doesn’t like it either, but when I first started mountain-biking with him in the mountains of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, if we were facing a headwind Jim would say, “Make the wind your friend.” It was his way of encouraging me when it felt insurmountable to ride against the forces of both gravity and wind.
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diddy, the area where you live sounds beautiful and filled with wildlife. Is it pretty remote, away from any major city? I’m intrigued by your infrequent shopping trips. Makes me think that you live far enough away from stores that you have to really think through current and future grocery needs.
Christine, thanks, and looking forward to seeing what the Topic inspires for you.
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yb, My house is fairly secluded, however I live very close to several cities & towns. I am the kind of person who uses coupons & stocks up whenever I shop. I get special deals through 2 local supermarkets, so I adjust my coupon use to the best deal. One thing I can say for sure is that we willl never run out of toilet paper! 🙂 D
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LOL. Oh, I wish I had the time and patience to collect coupons. I probably waste so much money at the grocery store being as how I never use coupons. The problem is, the coupons I find are generally for things I rarely use.
You should write about your system, as I imagine it must take having a means of organization to get the kind of savings you get.
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yb, it does take organization & time, but my normal savings are about $40.00 per visit, per store, so worth the time. I have always been a frugal shopper. There are some tricks to the method. One thing I’ve noticed is that they will offer a few sale items depending on the coupons in Sundays paper, but the other items will be full price, so I use my coupons only on the sale items I need & save the others for times when those items are sale priced, which is usually the following week. D
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So diddy, with the coupons, you’re saying that when something’s on sale price and you use the coupon, that’s the best deal? But how do you keep track of when the sales are and everything? Do you have a grid or something or write it all down? Or simply keep it in memory…$40 a visit is a huge savings. I don’t often have the patience to keep track of the coupons. But Liz is pretty good at it. She’s saved us a bunch of money with the coupons. Do you think it’s true what they say, that what they mark down in coupons, they make up for it by marking other items up in price? I always wondered about that.
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Yb and QM: I’m glad the link was interesting to you! It really makes some sense in my culture as we do a bit of feng shui without even knowing it. The ones we do are opening curtains to bring in sunlight for positive energy and closing curtains at night.
Years later, when I finally understood the things my parents said and did (which I called superstition), I realized in my discovery while writing a particular poem for my poetry class that it had been feng shui all along.
For example, I’ve learned that you should never have your feet facing the door of your bedroom. So that means, don’t position your bed towards the door. A spirit can crawl through your toes and may bring you negative energy, bad luck, etc..
Anyway, feng shui is really interesting. That link even educated me a bit more. 😀 So, thought I’d share since you asked about windows!
And yes, I’ll definitely find an opening (“window”) to sit down and write something about windows! I’ll link here when I’m done. 😉
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QM & yb, I get regular emails from both supermarkets, so it’s easy for me to see where the deals are & when. I get $5.00 off coupons, say on produce or my entire purchace. It does take patience & getting to the stores at the right moment. Good for Liz! You go girl!
I keep it to memory for the most part & seperate those coupons according to where they are in the store. That’s the tricky part. The stores constantly change the location of their their aisles, another trick, but I’m always one up on them! And they tend to put the best items on the bottom. It’s their way of trying to trick you. Tough, but well worth it in the long run. Coupons are usually good for a month or so. I hang on to them until the price is right. And yes, they do up the price on other items to make up for the loss. I also take my own canvas bags. I don’t want to leave the store with those plastic ones. D
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diddy, I read an article in The Economist, I think, about the science of grocery store design and product placement. It’s pretty detailed, the things they do to entice buyers to purchase higher priced items. I’ll see if I can find that.
Well, I wish I were as organized and prepared as you are when I go shopping. I do tend to look for deals and will often pass up items that aren’t on sale—Haagen Daz Ice Cream, for example—if I know it will go on sale later. But that’s probably just the basic stuff most people do.
A~Lotus, interesting that your family practice feng shui in their own quiet way. Our feet face a fireplace, but there’s no place we can put the bed in our bedroom where our feet don’t face either a window (there are three), a door (there are four) or a fireplace. I hope we don’t lose our energy up the chimney. 8)
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diddy, you could write a column on coupon clipping and probably make a mint! You sound very experienced. And patient with it. You’d be proud of Liz and me. Yesterday we had some must-have things on our list and went shopping for some of them. Liz was inspired by all this coupon talk and got out her old blue coupon holder. She went through them, threw out the expired ones, and then we took the rest out on the road. We saved a ton on things we needed, including haircuts! I was so happy because my hairdresser was back after a 3 month maternity leave. It was so good to not have to explain what I wanted, but just get the cut. We saved on the haircut and tipped her well in the process.
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[…] to posts WRITING TOPIC – WINDOW, haiku 2 (one-a-day), late winter haiku, and WRITING TOPIC – NAMES OF […]
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[…] -related to Topic post: WRITING TOPIC — WINDOW […]
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[…] Once the earth shifts this spring, the light will still come in these windows but the sun won’t. By summer the temperatures will cause me to seek out the coolness of my writing room, small and cave-like. It has a big window that’s shaded by a big old cottonwood and a couple of gigantic ponderosas. Ponderosas usually grow in the scraggly rocks of the Sandia Mountains, but these ones in the Rio Grande Valley hit the water table just a few feet down and soar to the sky. I imagine they’re decades old, gentle giants watching me watching them. -related to Topic post: WRITING TOPIC — WINDOW […]
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[…] keeping with last week’s Writing Topic, hundreds of windows turn Winter inside out at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden adjacent to the […]
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OK, I understand it is a writing topic, but let me post my painting here… you will have to see it on my page – Window. white gouache on black paper. I was looking for symbolic meaning of the windows on Internet after I noticed that an image of the window appears very often in my art. That’s how I found this topic.
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Glad you left a comment. Do you have a website that we can link to to see the image of the window? If so, include it in a comment, and if not, send me the image. Maybe we can put it up on a post, but you’ll have to check our Submission Guidelines [LINK] first and make sure you’re OK with those.
Did the symbolic meanings make sense for your situation? I’d be curious to know.
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[…] -related to posts: haiku 2 (one-a-day), WRITING TOPIC — WINDOW […]
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[…] your hinges? You make a better door than a window? Katy, bar the doors! ybonesy is on her way, and Lord knows, we don’t want her shadow to […]
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[…] to posts: PRACTICE — Spring Cleaning — 10min by QuoinMonkey, WRITING TOPIC — CLEANLINESS, WRITING TOPIC — WINDOW, and Wanda Wooley — The Lean Green Clean […]
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