That Window Still Knows Me: Solitude in the Shadows of Yesterday

The room is still. The past feels louder than now. I keep going back to one window in the old house.

Right now, the mind is quiet. Not the empty kind of quiet, but the kind that settles in your chest and hums against the walls. The whole neighborhood feels like it’s holding its breath.  

This silence isn’t nothing. It’s a doorway. It pulls hard at childhood, dragging me back to a past that feels sharper than today. In moments like this, I turn into a traveler. I go looking for what got left behind: my parents’ voices, my siblings’ laughter, that kid I used to be between the pages of old schoolbooks.  

And always, I end up at the same place. One window. In the old house.

That window was a sanctuary, a place where the power of solitude was first discovered. While the family searched the whole house, calling out and wondering where someone had disappeared to, the spot was always the same. Sitting in the shadows, looking out at the world. The beauty of it was simple: the world could be seen, but no one could see back.  

From there, the old houses were visible, and so was the massive, lush Jamun tree standing tall in the neighbor’s yard. The cool breeze still lingers in memory, drifting through the frame with the scent of wet earth and ripening fruit. There was the soft thud of Jamuns falling to the ground and the sight of children returning from school. Sometimes visits happened with those neighbors, a kind couple, sharing moments in that courtyard during fruit season. There was a peculiar peace in that invisibility. Just the world, and the quiet. Self-discovery through silence began right there.  

The journey as a writer began at that window, long before grammar made sense. Around five or six, before school even started, a children’s storybook became an obsession. A father once walked in and assumed it was just “acting,” but after a test, the stories came out perfectly recited. He was astonished and called the eldest sister to witness it.  

That same intuition spilled into numbers. School brought excellence in mathematics, often using complex formulas never taught in class.For a child, mathematics was like a hidden language, a logic that existed even before anyone explained its rules. Writing was preferred over speaking early on. The life of a silent observer took shape. Writing became a way of existing, turning life incidents and mathematical patterns into poetry.

Today, a mobile screen has replaced that window.It’s useful for work as a writer, but the magic of the wooden frame is gone. There’s no soul in this digital glow, no scent of the Jamun tree, and no true peace in its constant noise. While this new window connects to the world, the heart still wanders back to the old glass — wishing to sit there once more.

Yet this loneliness isn’t a burden. It’s a teacher. Healing through memories becomes possible when the quiet is embraced. Solitude acts like a mirror, introducing a person to their true self.In the tumult of the world, we hear the thoughts of others. In the silence of solitude, we finally hear our own voice.

The young woman who only saw shadows moves toward the light through words. Memories of the old house are no longer personal thoughts, but stories waiting to be told.