What your window says about you

For my cats...Levi's favorite window is anyone in the house he can jump into, look out of or chirp at, Bartleby's is anyone he can get into without issue or pain, and Bleue's favorite window is anyone that Levi and Bartleby are not using. For me, I prefer a window that a new friend shows to me, or the one that an old one wipes clean for me. I enjoy the one I look at while I write this story, as well as the one that helps me to search inside myself for answers when I read from wise old sages and masters of philosophy. The windows that a movie may create in my mind or that music stirs deep beneath my own flesh are just as brilliant as the ones that afford me to spider web with thoughts during a great discussion, finding new truths in old ideas.

Windows aren't merely varying sizes of double-paned glass inside wooden encasements---the window must allow my whole being to see more than my eyes alone are able to see. I have to be able to absorb more than what's on television or what I hear at work, thereby allowing me to circumvent barriers of shoulds and should nots. I prefer this sometimes ugly new visibility over the closed-minded, warped and decaying, but pretty leaden glass of what someone else tells me is true. Raw truths must be found in diverse locations, layered for effect and cooked at a certain temperature until perfect for digestion. Who cares how many truths you have to talk about until you get to the right one that fits and fits in snug.

My best guess for Tyson is that his favorite window to the world is a human's voice. Within the many voices he knows certain truths. He will be fed. He will be pet. He will be walked, comforted, rubbed, scrubbed, looked after, well kept and warm. A dog learns first by sound, then by smell. The unopened eyes of a newborn puppy smell mom, hear her licks and the sounds of his litter mates, and then can taste her milk. He feels warm when in a bundle or pile of other puppies, and can sense where mom is by the texture of her skin over the skin of his brothers and sisters.

Tyson is not at a loss because he is blind. (He can see shadows in direct light.) Tyson is likely more keen than most because he is blind. A window for Tyson is a guided smell or sound, which he must then refer to something else in his mind. In other words, Tyson must connect dots in a complicated pattern, making his neurons fire differently than most. A window for Tyson is therefore more open and more clear than often the windows for those who can actually see, likely because when you can see you miss things. You overlook things. You may even deny what you see as unnecessary for your life's journey because you forget that relying on your other senses is imperative for intellectual growth. Yet, Tyson must rely on all that he can hear and smell for his own path, making his window more broadened than most.


Tyson, the ever giving sage.... I tell ya, his life is more extraordinary every time I sit and think about it. Yes, yes, to all ethologists who are upset I have given Tyson over to anthropomorphism, may you quell your distaste and open another window.