A Room with a View

It was my grandma’s room and I wasn’t supposed to go there. It was the last room of the huge house we used to live in and no one went upstairs during the day anyway. It had her books, perfumes and a nice window toward where the sun set. She had a single bed with a flowery comfort covering it. On her nightstand there was a vintage lamp and few knick-knacks on top of a handmade doily. The scent of baby powder, her beauty secret, in that room was so pungent I almost can smell it again. My grandma had a big bookshelf with lots of grown-up books that I wasn’t allowed to read, although I was 15 years old. I remember borrowing, without the proper authorization, “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Richard Back, “Perfume” by Patrick Suskind and “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera.

The window was my favorite spot there. I loved to sit on the window seat to read. If somebody called me from downstairs, I could say I was studying in the next room, the office. I would wait for the sunset and when it was coming, I’d close my book and start paying attention to the sounds of the city: rush hour, lots of cars passing by, people running on the street, some children still playing outside. Then, suddenly, the loud sounds stopped and twilight reigned. Time to put the book back on its place, close the window and head downstairs for dinner. No worries, tomorrow would always be there.