Even in the dead of winter it was vital for my mother to be able to open a window. When ice crept inside, gathering strength, sealing wood to wood, impeding her much needed freedom, she armed herself with the ConAir blowdryer that I bought in the 9th grade, and blew her window and eventually her heart, wide open.
Maybe it was the swinging of the summer screen door at my grandparents’. Or my mother’s head out the nearest window. But I, too, have found the meaning of home, not by looking in, but looking through.
Some may think you’re safe by closing it all down. But you’re not safe, just alone. I always assumed it was only about breathing. But she said she liked to hear it. What? I asked. Life, my mother answered. There was always hope in the sound of the living. A car door. Footsteps. The distant train. Leaves and bird wings — they became the sounds of her own beating heart, and she was saved.
