I have been working in my make-shift home office in my back guest bedroom for almost 10 months. In those 10 months I can tell you without a doubt that the best part of this room is the window overlooking the garden. There are other good aspects of working from home—the four-second commute in the morning, the cats sleeping on my files, access to the snacks in the pantry, just to name a few. The window though is something altogether different. The window is, in a way, magical.
I have another window in my office at Keller Williams. It isn’t quite as good. It overlooks Universal Studio’s Volcano Bay Water Park. My office there is on the second floor so I am looking directly across the street at the second and third tier of steps for one of the big water slides in the park. The park is currently closed so I am not missing anything good but I often wondered if any of those vacationers were looking back across that street through my window and saying, “Wow, that real estate agent is really working hard.” Probably not exactly what they were saying, but, maybe……
The window in my home office doesn’t have a view of a water park. It just overlooks a garden. In the last 10 months I have seen mammoth sunflowers literally turn completely around and follow the sun from dawn to dusk. I have watched baby hummingbirds grow and become completely independent from their parents. I have seen crepe myrtles go from bare sticks to lush greenery, then to full bloom and back to sticks. Do you see what I mean? True magic.
Just recently I looked out the window and saw a robin. I have seen robins before as they migrate every year, but I hadn’t ever thought about how wonderful it is to be able to see these primarily northern birds for a few days as they pass through. I looked it up and robins can migrate from as far away as Vancouver, Canada and go as far south as Guatemala. They travel on average about 38 miles a day, but they can travel 100 to 200 miles a day in good conditions. They migrate along the 37–degree isotherm, which means they use the angle of the sun to know where they are on the earth. Their entire migration is instinctive. They are born knowing how to survive and somehow the water in our birdbath is part of that process. I am so happy about that part of the process.
Sitting in my home office I see, hear and read about so many really difficult things that are happening pretty much everywhere. However,I remember to look out the window every now and then to remind myself that I am not just observing a cycle of life, I am in a cycle of life. The same awareness in a sunflower that turns its head toward the sun is in me. The same instinct that moves a robin from one side of the continent to the other is in me. My instincts tell me to have faith in the process and know that all cycles come and go. It took looking through a different window to give me a new perspective. I’ve decided I am going to keep looking toward the light.
Sincerely—Mark Ramey
