Perspective Isn’t Always Only About Where You Are Standing

We are often encouraged to look at things from various vantage points, to see things from a different perspective. But perspective isn’t only about where you’re standing.

I live in a building that is over 100 years old. The windows are huge. They are double hung and each of the two sections is 44 inches high. Earlier today one of the bottom ones fell out of the casing into my studio apartment. The window damaged the leaves of my large orchid, broke the pot of my small orchid, shattered my red, glass bud vase, and dumped dirty water onto the back of the bolster that turns my bed into a couch during the day. I cannot impress upon you how heavy the bottom portion of this window is. It made quite a bit of noise when it fell. It happened in my peripheral vision as I was I was sitting at my table eating and watching a movie. My brain experienced it as some kind of comic book villain swooping into my home to do me in. I screamed. I started to shake. This was my initial, emotional response. It was visceral.

Then I took a breath. I realized that I wasn’t hurt, that I was extremely lucky that it hadn’t happened at night while I had been sleeping. Without that back bolster to break the window’s fall, its weight would have hurt me badly. It probably would also have shattered on impact, slicing and dicing me in the process.

I took a photo. Reported the damage to the property managers. Pushed the window back into place. The property manager had advised me to lock the window to hold it more securely until he could get there. I managed to lock one of the two locks. It was enough to hold the window. I cleaned up all the mess. I realized nothing of real value had been lost. I went from shaking with fright to busily re-righting my world.

I decided to accept what happened as a fluke. I found out it had never happened in this building before. I was lucky. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. I could have stayed scared. I could have gotten angry, but something else kicked in. Something good. An older and wiser perspective. Gratitude for my safety. Recognition of an opportunity to not make something be bigger than it actually was. I’ll admit, there was a little bit of entertainment value thrown in there too, and the makings of a good story to tell. I hope this incident has trained me to see things from this same perspective if anything bigger comes my way. We’ll see.

Cinse Bonino
2023