Looking out my favorite window, I see time passing. I see my past, my future, my life. This place has always been here. It watched me blow balloons for my 5th birthday, it watched me plant Jasmines and Roses with my grandma when I was seven, it watched me sing my heart out on the swing when I was ten, it watches me walk through it at night, thoughtfully.
This is the small hidden window that not many people would care much about in the corner of my grandmother’s kitchen. This window looks out on the lovely garden that once existed, and this window has also watched me cry my heart out when strangers bought this garden and carelessly tore down the home of my childhood. We called it the Jasmine Garden. There is no Jasmine Garden anymore.
People shouldn’t do things like this. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t have the right to go and build a home for their family with a nice pool in the backyard, but they should be more aware about what they’re doing. I wish I had the power to turn back time, and talk to the people who bought my garden. I would get to know them, let them hear my side of the story, listen and understand theirs. I wouldn’t stop them from buying it, but it would have made me feel a little better.
So now, like I said, when I look outside the balcony, I don’t see my beautiful Jasmine Garden, I see a tall ugly useless gray building that will never be half as valuable to me as my garden was. Except when I look through that window, I see every moment that I have spent in that garden, every memory, every breath, and every smile. I like to hide there sometimes, underneath that window, enjoying all the memories that are floating back.
When I look out of a window, I see the world. The world sees me. But looking out of that special window, the world can only pretend to see me; the world tries to read me, because when I look out of that window, I don’t see what the world sees. I see my eight year old redheaded self swinging freely on the swing, singing, laughing, and smiling. I see my abandoned torn swing that may seem cheap to people who doesn’t know the stories that are behind it.
I see my beautiful garden of white Roses and Jasmine.