The Voyeur In Me (And You)

I remember being a young girl, riding in the backseat of my parents’ car, on the way home from my aunt and uncle’s house.

I remember the thruway, a broken ribbon of yellow rushing under the tires. I remember the sound: whump-whump-whump. My sister sleeping on left, my brother on the right, both their heavy heads on my shoulders.

My knees bumped against my chin, legs sitting high on the hump of the middle seat.

I sat in the middle, always.

My eyes stayed open in spite of my exhaustion, sun-tired from swimming in the pool with my cousins. Head buzzing with the caffeine high from the cola my mother only allowed us to drink at my aunt’s house, I watched as houses whizzed by the car in the dark night.

Barns loomed navy blue in the gloom, fences outlining the borders of the fields. Over the sweaty faces of my siblings I strained to see the houses.

I looked for the windows.

Every so often, I was rewarded with a golden rectangle in the thick darkness. I caught glimpses of lives from my spectator seat—refrigerators covered in bright magnets, kitchen tables lit by hanging lamps, the occasional outline of a body standing silhouetted against the square panes.

I imagined their lives, made up stories about them. I watched from my perch in the brown, wood-paneled station wagon driven by my father as families tidied their kitchens after dinner, prepared for bedtime, watched TV in their easy chairs.

It was the best part of visiting my aunt. Not the pool or the junk food or even my much-older cousins held as much allure as the promise of those illicit glimpses of someone else’s ordinary evening.

I still feel the same way: a girl reading in Erie, PA; a man kissing his wife in Dayton, OH; the farmer stretching in front of the window over his kitchen sink in Indiana.

Lauren, whose photo you see above, asked me to snap a photograph of myself at the exact minute I read her blog post tagging me for a meme.

I did as she asked.

This is me and The Poo as we lay on the guest bed in my spare room, watching cartoons before she goes to bed. We are both in our pajamas.

This what you would see, if you happened to be driving by in a station wagon one evening just as the sun set, all red-gold fire, over the undulating corn field that is my back yard.

Show me your window, won’t you?

Take a photo of yourself right now, as you are, and post it. Send me the link, or leave it in my comments, and I will compile them to share with the rest of the voyeurs out there.