February 27, 2008

• The Widow's Walk

  I learned something new this morning.  Have you ever heard of a Widow's Walk?

  I was talking with my mom, who, along with my dad, have retired to Florida.  They are going to a friends house this afternoon, and my mom is thrilled because their friend lives a block from the water and has a "widow's walk".

  Never heard of this before - and what a bittersweetly romantic concept it is!

  From Wikipedia:

  A widow's walk (or roofwalk) is a railed rooftop platform, typically on a coastal house, originally designed to observe vessels at sea. The name comes from the wives of mariners who would watch for their spouses to return. In some instances, the ocean took the lives of the mariners, leaving the women as widows; who would often thereafter gaze out to sea wishing beyond hope that their loved ones would return home and hence the name widow's walk was born.

  

  Now, I live in Chicago, but I don't care, I want one.  How cool is this?  I'm sure my neighbors would whisper and gossip, but I would still have the coolest house on the block.  Of course, then I think of my son as a teenager one day and the fabulous liability it would eventually become and *poof!* my romantic dreams are killed.

  But wow, can you imagine a life in which you needed to build onto your home in order to long for the return of your loved one?  Now, instead of sitting on a rocker looking out to sea, we sit in front of the television and listen to them tally the count in Iraq, report murders on the news and uncover planned school shooting after shooting....

  I'm not sure which one is more sad......

   

   

  • 9:51 am
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