Outside looking in

            This photo taken on a cold December evening keeps rising to my attention. Something about the warmth of the yellow-orange, interior light in contrast with the cold, monochrome blue outside world seizes my imagination.
            Have you ever walked down a street at night, seeing snippets of life going on in the orangey glow of other people’s houses? You almost feel like you are not in the world; you’re in some other realm, veiled, lifted away from the laughter and the fingers running through hair and animated talk on a phone and the hot mug of something carried through a doorway. You are an observer, like someone watching TV, but the world is the TV and you’re outside of it. It can be an unsettling feeling, or lonely, or sometimes just a temporary removal, since you know you have your own warm box of light to return to, soon enough. Still, you might stop and wonder about being separated from all that life forever some day, and you walk a little faster towards home, because you’re not ready for that just yet.
 
My 60th year in 60,000 words
Day 148: 181 words, TOTAL = 24,066; 35,934 remaining