Writing about these windows is hard because I can’t stop staring at (out?) them. Try it. Open window-swap.com and then just go back to what you were doing before. You, if you’re like me, won’t want to. There’s a pull to these places that’s hard to describe.
An indescribable pull to 10-minute videos of mostly anonymous people’s perspectives might sound a lot like the quiet reflection some have suggested that we give a try. Maybe it is. But it’s also, unfortunately, still “screen time.” I don’t know if I’m any more settled into myself or contemplative for quietly looking at other people’s views. I don’t think I understand anything new about the world from observation. A selection of my deepest, dead sober thoughts from the past hour of staring includes: “Pinwheels! Very creative.” “Succulents in white pots still having a moment, I see.” “Jesus, who is that?” (A full-size Stormtrooper costume in the corner of a room.) “Whoa, chickens.” “Whoa, green.”
I do experience a nice warmth when there’s a lot of background noise, but not music. The rise and fall of a home’s subtle foley or some light puttering by a mysterious figure out of frame reminds me of that feeling when I’m somewhere new: a mix of alertness and openness to surprise. Sometimes I stop staring at the window through the screen and close my eyes and listen.
I struggle to imagine what life is like for each of the hundreds of people on the other side of the lens even though there are quite a few things I know about them: They all have windows. They all have phones or another recording device. They can access internet. They share a desire to contribute a pretty personal slice of their lives within the bounds of anonymity, or rather, identified by only first name and place. Sometimes they let you see nice furniture arranged beautifully. They go on living amid a pandemic.
The relative lack of context is a balm, though. The clip is edited (as in, the minutes are selected, as is what’s in the frame), but WindowSwap has none of the blustering ego of Instagram or the self-consciousness of Twitter, or at least it’s not so ghoulishly presented as those two are. It is simply a single view. Rarely is the creator in the video, and if they are, all you see is as unidentifiable as a disembodied hand at a distance. There is no commentary mechanism meant to contextualize it. I suppose all the space for unknowns makes it easier to quietly appreciate life from someone’s vantage, even if mine, to me, is a little played out.
I see an enormous field in Kashipur, India. I hear a soft beat peppered with a ukulele sample from Israel Kamakawiwo‘ole’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” The sun shining through clouds in that godlike way it does sometimes. In Reggio Emilia, Italy, I can hear but not see cars on a street. The cat on the ledge seems used to them. A dog barks somewhere in Envigado. It’s windy in Haridwar. Koh Tao taunts me with its range.
And then suddenly I’m in Brooklyn. The view is down the street from me actually, on my brother’s block. It took me a moment to recognize it. I felt an unnamable familiarity first, and then I saw a restaurant that I never managed to get to before the closures, and everything snapped into place.
Suddenly I’m back to where I am. It’s busy. A car with no muffler lets you know it. Someone is cooing at a baby off-screen. I have the same sandals as that lady. Another woman talks animatedly into a phone at the crosswalk. She’s not wearing a mask. A rotund man in a white apron bursts out of a bar across the street. He is wearing one.