I remember my grandmother sitting quietly,
Peaceful,
Quite still,
And she appeared to be staring,
Looking out the window.
And as a little boy,
My patience was minimal,
I'd watch her for a few seconds or half a minute and she seemed to be just looking out the window and I was thinking,
What's she looking at?
There's nothing happening.
She seemed happy.
So I'm a bit older now and I'm sitting here looking out the window and it's interesting because I see through the window,
Through the screen,
Through the air,
And even through the trees and houses that come up on the other side of the valley.
It's a lovely view.
I can see down to the bottom of the valley and up to the top of the hill and I'm at the level of about three quarters of the height of the tall trees.
And now being winter with no leaves on the trees,
I can see quite easily through the trees,
Past the houses,
To the hill on the other side.
And what I find interesting is all the little squares of screening,
Each square has a little bit different color,
A white,
A brown,
A gray,
A green,
A yellow,
An orange,
A gray,
Different shades of gray in the sky,
Shades of blue in the sky.
And each of those little squares that is formed by the screening is really a paint-by-number picture.
And I could take a photograph of the scene that I'm seeing with all the little lines from the screening and then number each tiny box with a different color and paint a paint-by-number picture of the scene I'm looking at.
And then I'm thinking it's really a three-dimensional scene that I'm looking at.
And if I took the screening that's in front of me and then another screen and another screen and another screen beyond that and beyond that and beyond that,
Each screen would be a slightly different perspective.
And I could create a three-dimensional block of everything that I'm seeing that's out there.
The edge of the railing that's in front of me and then the tree that's close by and then the tree behind that and then the house on the other side of the valley and then the house up the hill beyond that one and then trees on the other side of that.
Each one three-dimensionally creates the entire scene that I'm looking at.
And that flows back to me as the three-dimensional aspect of time.
I'm flowing along with everything else through time.
But it appears static the way the first image of my looking out the window appears as a flat picture like that paint-by-number picture would be flat.
But it really has depth to it,
Three-dimensionality.
And time really has that change of past,
Present,
Future.
But it's really continually flat as we go through the perception of now.
Even the sounds all around me.
The hum of the air warming the room that I'm in.
The feel of cold on the glass in front of me.
So what was my grandmother looking at?
What was she seeing?
Where was she then?
I wish she were here now.
