I had noticed a bath towel was lying on our balcony at one afternoon. For a long time I haven’t hear any noise from my neighbors and never saw people put their towel on the balcony on our floor. It must be a new neighbor, I thought. A young guy’s voice seemed to prove my guess, but I haven’t seen him. Sometimes I saw a chair was enjoying the beautiful sunshine on the balcony, and it often changed its position. But now I notice the small hairclip on the floor in this image. Connecting these photos, they seem unwittingly to invite me to imagine stories for them, stories of happiness, romanticism or betrayal or loss. My behavior is like that a viewer in the theatre, who can imagine without difficulty that the actions on the stage are showing in ancient Egypt because the background has been painted with a pyramid and a camel.

 

The imagination always could provide a more than adequate substitute for the reality of actual experience. This photo made me think of another equally and unexpectedly poetic place - the fifth floor of the central library. There are always a lot of chairs near the big windows. People often like sitting on the chairs and watching different boats pass through the tranquil waters. It is perhaps because this view offers an opportunity to escape our habits of mind.

 

Lying in a chair, the place was quiet except for the occasional swooshing of the elevators in the building. After a while, the nervous, anxious, practical part of thoughts slowly disappeared, my mind could overfly everywhere. I could re-experience my lives from a height I could not have reached in my everyday life. It was assisted by the unfamiliar world around me: by the small foreign characters on the edge of the desk, by the show of unfamiliar books in the mini tables, by the library service paper of everyday open hours and the sound of piano from the basic floor. And at the end of hour, I often saw all the empty chairs carried different stories waiting for next passages.

 

I often find poetry in these kinds of places, that can offer people a chance to return to themselves and bring them back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to them.