A room with a view from a stay & conference in Florence, Italy.

Years ago, I fell in love with the Merchant Ivory adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novel A Room with a View. To this day, the film has remained a favorite. I remember the night I first watched it. I was a factory worker, & a coworker (older than me, but beautiful and kind) lent me her VHS copy when she learned I was an English major, loved British literature, & adored literary films.

Enthralled, I stayed up into the wee hours of the night to finish it (work didn’t get out until 12:30 am, & it took time to wind down), so enamored was I with Lucy Honeychurch & George Emerson. I’ll never forget the magic I felt that night, watching that movie. It spoke to me, awakened something.

A favorite scene from a favorite film.

Like a recent movie at that time that I’d watched at the local cinema, the Italian city of Florence figured largely. (The other film was “While You Were Sleeping,” the first movie I’d seen publicly by myself, a liberating act for me by the way.) In it, the main character dreams of visiting Florence & is given a snow globe of the city. She carries a passport, dreaming of the day she gets to travel abroad.

I could totally understand the curiosity of wanting to see the world, but feeling so limited, so bound by my situation in life.

A stunning fresco amidst a number of shuttered windows in Rome.

In both films, an ingenue of a young woman wants to see the world. I could acutely relate to that feeling, since I’d never been out of the country, let alone even been on a plane. As for passionate or fated romance, I’d been bookish for so long, & I always had put my academics first. I just didn’t have any additional time to invest in anything more than school & work.

The idea of foreign travel seemed like a dream for others, not so much for me.

The view from a room in Rome, Italy, with fresh produce from the nearby open market.

So there was for me a kind of symbolism in a window that offered a unique view of a new or foreign place outside, especially for the inexperienced, somewhat naïve tourist. I imagine that’s also what created & creates wanderlust for souls like mine. The excitement of new sights, smells, sounds. The promise of new cultures. A place where you can reinvent yourself.

A lovely view from a room at The Buttery in Oxford, England.

As you may know from reading other posts (thank you, by the way, if you have), I found myself, my sense of who I am, in England. Like the film & book A Room with a View, the female protagonist undergoes a journey of self set in both England & Italy. I felt like Lucy, leaving the safety of home to experience a passion, an education of character & being.

Another window view from The Buttery in Oxford.

So you could say windows, like doors, represent opportunity to me, but of a different sort. Where you often cannot see through doors–which holds another type of excitement in not knowing & instead imagining what lies beyond–windows instead tease the viewer with a glimpse. Windows offer something else.

An amuse-bouche. Windows tease you with what could be, showing you with just a small sampling. Just a taste of possibility, a promise of something spectacular & fantastic & beyond anything you ever imagined.

Perhaps, if like Wendy with Peter Pan, you’re willing to venture beyond the sill, you might just discover your Neverland. You might let your heart dream. Just perhaps.

A window in Trastevere, Italy.