@2014 Mary Anderson Parks
I stand in one corner of the room, barefoot on the polished floor, certainly it was not I who polished it, staying off the oriental rug, waiting for a message to come to me. I hope no one enters the room while I wait but if they do I have a plan. I will leap headfirst out the open window like a comet into the softly turned earth around the flowerbeds. If on the other hand. . . I look at my hand and slide the wedding band off easily. I’ve not been eating much. Leaning forward, I fling it expertly through the open window. If a face, a body, a hand even, were to appear in the window, what would I do? There are not many choices if that happens. I could move to it and kiss the face or the hand. No way will I flee through this room’s door. That would lead me deeper into the house and be a kind of death. It is bad enough to be huddling in the corner as I am now, afraid to step on the rug, afraid to go to my chair by the window. This has not happened before, and I feel something catch in my throat, like a bird trapped there. But what now! The bird alights on the windowsill, a small brown bird that looks right at me in a friendly way. It tweaks its head to one side and I hold still and wait, knowing the bird sees the smile inside me and then the bird, as it must, flies away, and I, as I must, stand and step one bare foot onto the rug and then the other and roll my feet to the window. When I am next to it, on bare floor again, I lie down on my back. I can see the blue sky, a blessing to the prisoner who is I, and when he comes home tonight, he will find me here.
Mary Anderson Parks 
Mary – I finally got on your site by changing to another server on my computer. I’ve read 6 chapters and don’t have time for more because I’m in the throes of creating my 2015 calendar and have deadlines – but I want to say that I’m so excited by what I’m reading. Brilliant!! Absolutely great writing! I can’t wait to treat myself to the rest of this book. Psychologically there will be lots more to say too, but I’ll wait till the end. You are amazing. Keep these chapters coming. Hope to see you soon! Love, Leslie
Leslie, thank you. I will be especially interested to hear your response as a psychologist practicing marriage and family counseling. On tenterhooks actually!
So exciting to know you are busy with the 2015 calendar. Do we ever need it! Every day I appreciate your 2014 calendar, “In Love with Earth,” combining as it does your inspired photographs with monthly featuring of grassroots organizations working toward a sustainable environment.
I leave you on tenterhooks? Oh no, hard for me to do that. But I also am preparing for a talk I’m giving at the Art salon tomorrow evening on Art, Biology and Consciousness. An ambitious topic. Perhaps I was shy to invite you and George because I’m hardly any kind of scientific person to be talking about biology. However, Angar has moved the program to the big dining room so there is plenty of room if you actually would be interested. Do let me know, if so. And if not, I hope we all can have dinner together when the calendar goes to the printer.
Again, I am so moved, Mary, by the exquisite sensitivity of Woman at the Window.