Windows

With the heart of a gypsy and the soul of a pirate my most adventurous disposition has provided me with many windows'.
At just 16, I left home. Gazing out of a Swiss chateaux at eye-level with another mountain peak, watching the snow glisten and crackle in the sunshine: I've never forgotten the sheer glee at the realization that this was something one could never capture on film or with an artist's palette. It was pure and significantly exhilarating, nature at its most awesome. Totally addicted, this drug has lured me ever since, injecting similar searches with that same adrenaline rush.

At 40, it dawned on me that I was unwilling to be found on my death bed wishing ruefully that I had done more with my life, so I made a list of windows I wanted to look through, and worked my way through them like a double glazing salesman on amphetamines.
It cost me everything and I regret not one second.
I sold my house and began with a trip on the QE2 to New York City, then a 29 hour Amtrak Train journey right through the heart of America to New Orleans for the Jazz Festival. Then a Greyhound Bus from Miami right down the Florida Keys to swim with a dolphin or 2.
On to the Caribbean where I met the love of my life, Henderson: we lived like Onassis until the money ran out. Then we simply moved into the ghetto - a wooden shack, no plumbing, flying cockroaches, drooling elderly relatives, and his alcoholic step -father. I loved every minute.
So, if I were to recall all the wonderful views from all the various windows I would be dizzy with excitement and probably faint from overload.
So, finally I picked one with a pin: we had moved into a very expensive 2 bedroom apartment [with Jacuzzi I might add!] - right opposite the Prime Minister's residence Elaro Court. One morning Henderson woke me at dawn, putting his hand over my mouth and gesturing I come to the bathroom with him. He was full of imagination at the best of times, and, thinking this was some new sexual initiative, I giggled and trotted obligingly after him. He had opened the slatted window and bent my head gently grinning stupidly, pointing to the garden.
A whole family of green monkeys were prancing and gibbering, tumbling and frolicking there, taking turns to climb our pea tree and steal its treasures. We were no more than five feet away and it left us delirious with joy, having planted food for days, in the hope of luring them. After this, they came every day but bizarrely they graduated to the trees where they used to peep out and watch us at breakfast. I guess, in turn, we became their window.

Learn more about this author, Roxanne King.
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