Column: Enjoying a room with a view

As I stood on the balcony and looked out to the ocean, I recalled a dream I’d had just a week before.

Several authors had appeared to me in my sleep, including Jack London, who wrote “The Call of the Wild,” and English writer E.M. Forster.

The dream had puzzled me. Though I am a librarian and writer, and thus spend a lot of time with words and books, I don’t typically dredge up images of dead scribes from my subconscious.

But suddenly, as I stood in the bracing sea air (for I was in Maine, in March, not Jamaica), I realized that my subconscious had been hard at work. Forster is probably best known in the U.S. for his 1908 novel, “A Room with a View.” Or, should I say, the popular 1985 film based upon it, which starred Maggie Smith and Helena Bonham-Carter.

That was it. I had come into a room with a view!

Some people are lucky enough to live in houses with lots of rooms, lots of views. I have never been one of these people. Since I grew up in a ranch-style house, the windows were on the small side. If my parents, who built the house, had thought to put in sliding glass doors in the dining area, we would have been able to look out over our large backyard, with its towering willow tree and the stone wall that separated it from a pumpkin field.

The picture window in the living room did look out over more fields, as well as the town reservoir in the distance. It was hardly a spot in which to sit and contemplate life, however.

Perhaps this deprivation made me long for a room with a view from an early age. It was not to be. When my husband, Paul, and I first moved to Maine, we lived in Lewiston. The house had a long side porch, which was a quite pleasant place for watching the world go by. Unfortunately, an elderly couple across the street also liked to sit on their porch, and they were a forbidding sight. They never talked to one another, and they certainly never waved over to us. They just stared.

That’s the kind of view I can do without.

Our home for most of our marriage has been a “gable front and ell” built in the 1870s. Since we live in a small city, none of our views is going to be spectacular. This is a shame, because most of the windows are quite tall--about five feet.

Still, when I sit in my armchair in the living room, I can see clear across two rooms and through the dining-room window. There is our pear tree, where birds feed and squirrels scamper. There’s a woodpile beyond that, and a young fir tree. Finally, in the distance, is a classic white Victorian house. Not bad.

Of course, when I think of a room with a view, I’m thinking specifically of an ocean view, although lakes and mountains have their merits. I do like big-city views too. When I stayed in Boston recently for a conference, I enjoyed looking out at the lights sparkling over the theater district at night.

Paul and I do get away each summer to a spot on Penobscot Bay where several windows (including one in a bathroom) have amazing views. I like the busyness of the harbor, with pleasure boats coming and going and kayakers paddling by. Lobster boats putter in and out, and, once in awhile, a tugboat will guide a container ship into the deep-water port.

We can see the fog creep across the bay, and then retrace its steps. The sunrises are spectacular. We watch the loons, and listen for their calls. Sometimes we just sit, and look at the water.

This is what I was doing on my balcony at the Samoset Resort in Rockport earlier this month. I was attending a conference, and hadn’t dared to hope I’d get a room with a view--never mind a balcony.

I didn’t have a lot of time to stand out there, but I managed to work in five or 10 minutes at a time. There are walking trails on the property. And just below a ridge, just out of my line of sight, was the Rockland Breakwater, which is a popular landmark, even in late winter. So besides the purple sky, the gray sea, and the long arm of what I believe was the town of Owls Head, I could also see people strolling, stopping to talk, pausing to look, pointing binoculars to the sky.

I did have a chance to get outside myself, which is another benefit of having a room with a view. It only takes a few minutes to get out and immerse yourself in the landscape.

The fact that I lack a permanent view does not make me bitter. I just feel blessed whenever I get one. And I think back to what was, perhaps, the best view of all.

When I was in high school, my parents rented a motor home two years in a row, and took us across the country. I loved to lie on the double bed in the back of the camper, where I could watch the passing scenery. I saw the Gateway Arch, the Grand Canyon, and my favorite, Big Sur, through that window. Talk about a room with a view!