For years, I felt like an aesthetic wanderer without a permanent address. On one hand, I could lose myself for hours in the boundless, ethereal soft light of a Monet. Yet, on the other hand, I found a strange spark in the sharp, provocative wit of a Banksy. I often wondered: was there ever a space wide enough to hold these two sides of me that seemed so at odds? That was until I found myself standing before a ‘window’, a painting of a tattered lace curtain dancing in a sea breeze by Andrew Wyeth. The moment a chill ran down my spine, I knew I wasn’t just looking at art; I was looking at a homecoming. It turns out my soul has always lived in a place that isn’t loud, yet lingers long within the heart: a realm called Poetic Realism.
Looking at Wind from the Sea was an almost startling confrontation with my own interiority. In that moment, I wasn’t just observing a piece of art; I was being seen by it.
It felt quiet, yet incredibly alive.
There is a profound honesty in those tattered curtains. They don’t apologize for their fraying edges, much like I’ve learned to stop apologizing for the ‘weathered’ parts of my own journey. The painting whispered a truth I had been trying to articulate in my coaching and my life: that strength doesn’t look like a solid, unmoving wall. It looks like a window. A wall is safe, but it is stagnant. A window, however, is a choice. It is the courage to stay rooted in the structure of the room (the Realism) while allowing the invisible, unpredictable wind of the spirit to blow through (the Poetic).
I felt a sudden, cooling wash of relief. It was the realization that I don’t have to choose between being ‘Strong’ and being ‘Soft.’ The breeze is soft, but it has the power to change the atmosphere of an entire room. The window is hard, but its only purpose is to let the light and air in.
In Wyeth’s muted palette, I finally found the permission to be unvarnished. It was a reminder that the most ‘alive’ version of myself isn’t the one performing under the bright, saturated lights of external expectations. It is the version of me that sits quietly in the ‘room’ of my own making, feeling the cool, honest breeze of grace as it passes through. It was a homecoming to a house that had no noise, only resonance. Ultimately, we are all looking for that same “cooling”, that breath of fresh air that tells us we are okay, even when life feels heavy.
Most of us spend our lives trying to be ‘walls.’ We think that to be strong, we must be impenetrable, solid, and closed off to protect ourselves from the ‘rain’ and the ‘storms’ of life. We wear masks of perfection, hoping no one sees the fraying edges of our spirit.
But looking at that window taught me a different kind of strength.
It taught me that our true value doesn’t come from being ‘unbreakable.’ It comes from our capacity to remain open. To be a ‘Strong Person’ is to have the integrity to be a window, to have a soul that is rooted enough to let the world pass through it without being swept away by it.
We don’t need to control the wind. We only need to trust our own ‘frame’, the values we hold, the boundaries we set, and the quiet honesty we offer ourselves. When we stop fighting the reality of the ‘frayed curtains’ in our lives, we finally find the peace we’ve been searching for. Not because the world became quieter, but because we became more honest.
So, I wonder: in our own lives, are we busy trying to be a wall, or are we ready to finally open the window? Are we ready to let the air in to feel the ‘cooling’ and the ‘honesty’ of reality, without letting it ruin the very structure that holds us? Because being a window isn’t about losing our protection; it’s about having a frame so strong that it can afford to be open.
Love,
Kirana
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