Salvador Dalí
Woman at the Window (Muchacha en la ventana)
oil on board (my Edited version)
1925
She sits back and stares at the empty word screen on her computer. There is so much to write about yet there is nothing to write. There are so many thoughts in her mind, which she cannot translate into words. She looks out the window, so that something beautiful, or moving catches her inspirational eye and transpires into words. Maybe the sky in its various shades of blue will flex a writing muscle or two. It doesn’t work; she has been looking out of the same window every day of her life. There is nothing different about it. She knows the colors of the sky from this window, she knows the birds that fly by this window, and she knows the people and the cars that pass by this window. She knows when the sun will cast a shade at the angle of her bed or her wall. She knows how a passing by car will deflect the suns light from a glass building toward her window and cause a momentary flash of light on her ceiling. She needs a different window to look out from. A different sky. A different scenery. A different perspective. A different outlook. So she packs her bags, and leaves.
Left the comfort of home, To hunt for treasures Made purely of simple pleasures She was meant to discover and roam Endless streets, faces sweet An uncharted territory, and like them plenty Warm hearts or roughened hands How much pain did they have to withstand? A violent sea she came across A forest of trees cloaked with Spanish moss Toiling under the unforgiving sun She explored the land of Amun Wild horses galloping on a savage land The Americas, Rome and Amsterdam Talked hours to a poor man And learned much from a savant She lived, she loved She laughed and she wept Many a things she learnt Of the past, present and ahead
Days passed by. Days became weeks, and weeks progressed to months. She saw much of the world. She looked through many windows, and saw different things. Things she had never seen or imagined before. Never had she fathomed she would experience people, places and nature in so many brilliant ways. She had learnt the ways of life, science, art and God on her journey. And now she wrote about the beauty, the magnificence and the tragedy of life. As the journey came to its end, her experiences were starting to become vague ideas or distant memories. She wondered, was it just a dream? She had begun to feel emptiness inside of her, the very same one she felt when she looked out the window of her former abode.
But this time it was a yearning for something once had, a longing for something left behind. She would find nothing to write about, even with a hundred wonderful ideas. She felt a pull towards her. It felt like air being sucked out of a balloon, or a well of water being dried by a powerful sun.
Backward steps, Was she lost or was it deliberate? Looking for tracks left behind, A crumble of bread, A sign that she could find Beginning to marvel At this big blue marble All the places, all the faces No matter what the case is For survival, for subsistence A soldier goes out to fight Or a bird that takes flight They all come back, they all return Looking for home, And here she was Looking out her old window The evening sky like a sheet of sapphire Down was the yellow suns fire Yet she was looking out Here she was A queen on her throne, She was home.
-Namal Siddiqui
