Behind the windows

One thing I like about the darker mornings is that when we walk to kindy we can see light in windows and get a teeny tiny little peek into people's lives.

The light is usually only on in the kitchens, and other rooms are only dimly lit, if lit at all. It draws our eyes to the light, and as we walk past we see people in their first awake hour, sitting at their kitchen tables having coffee or standing at the kitchen bench making breakfast. Sometimes an unwrapped loaf of bread sits abandoned on the kitchen bench, telling the story of a rushed morning.

Sometimes people walk out of their houses in slippers to get their newspapers. Some are already sitting at their tables reading the paper, the stillness of their profile makes me know they're reading it, really reading it. Like they have all the time they want to read the paper. They probably do. Some are not reading the paper but getting ready to leave for work, kindy, school. Kids bent over bowls of cereal, bed hair sticking out the top of their heads. Some windows are dark. Maybe the people who live there have left already. Or better; maybe they are still in their warm beds.

This is what I see when I walk with my girls in the pram, both tucked into their warm sleeping bags. The little one usually asleep. The big one usually singing and trying to touch the hedges at the side of the road.