I rented this apartment twelve years ago after my wife divorced me. It was the view from the living room that attracted me. There were three bowed windows facing north. They made a kind of trapezoid, with the center window about two feet farther out. From the window you could look down on a small vest-pocket park. The park was maintained by the city, so it was full of blooms year-round. Colorful bushes and flowers. Dogwood trees that flowered in the spring. A nice view. It occupied the back half of the block.

Across the little park was 2^nd Street and a sidewalk. Then there was an apartment building. I was on the fifth and top floor or our building, and the other apartment building was the same five floors though at a lower elevation.

I put my chair in front of a window with the desk against the wall to my left. From my chair I could look down on the nice little park, or see the sky, clear or raining. I spent a lot of my evenings reading a book in front of the window; it was like being outside, but without the rain, or wind, or winter cold, or summer’s heat. For the first ten years, there was a window that stayed covered by a white curtain in the other building. I guess the light came on and went off behind the curtain. Who noticed? It was just a white space that interrupted a brick wall.