This Exeter Life: A Light in the Window

I don’t like the dark. But I do like warm weather. 

Last night, the balmy evening temperatures trumped my usual reluctance to leave the house after sundown. Eager to stretch my legs, I struck out on my usual walk through town and along the river, but nothing about what I saw was usual. 

I suspect I’m more of a voyeur than I’d be willing to admit publicly (oops, I think I just did). I’ve always enjoyed the quick glimpses into people’s inside lives just after the lights come on, but before the shades have been drawn. 

Last night as I walked along, the world became my own personal advent calendar, each window revealing a two-second vignette from which I could spin a larger story. I love that in darkness windows, which in day time are for looking out, reverse their purpose and provide views into otherwise opaque structures and the lives within them. On my walk, there were static snapshots like: 

A row of brassieres hanging on a garment rack in the backroom of Top Drawer; 

Shelves of books illuminated at Water Street Bookstore; 

Shots of decorative molding through lit windows; 

The flicker of a TV screen in a second story window behind lacy curtains and; 

The touching line up of stuffed animals on the top of a bookcase in a Phillips Exeter dorm room. Is he homesick? Does she feel caught between the world of premature independence at a boarding school and the need to still remain a child for a bit longer? 

And of course, my favorite glimpses are of people conducting their lives like actors, encompassed in a small pool of light on an otherwise dark stage: 

A guitarist with his teacher having a lesson in the back room of Exeter Music; 

The sole employee on duty in the otherwise empty Verizon shop, feet up reading; 

Mary in white gloves in the Exeter Jewelers window taking apart the display for the evening; 

And as if they understand my game, the offices of Gilman Real Estate lit by one small desk lamp and set up like a stage, ready for the first act to begin. 

Then there were the sights and sounds that are only visible after dark, like the river of cars traveling down Newfields road—a trail of glowing ants on a conveyor belt. Or the mother and her two small children walking by Fischer Price lantern light. What an adventure that must have seemed to them! 

I arrived home full of all the lives I'd just witnessed and feeling like the darkness was a little less lonely.

After the sun goes down today, why don't you strike out with your honey, your kids or on your own and see what stories of this Exeter life reveal themselves to you. 

Now, if you’ll pardon me. It’s almost time to lower the blinds.