Window on Ipsoscope

A favorite view of life etched itself into memory. I would look through a stained glass window in a third floor dormer of the great big house of my birth. I could look out at the gothic arches of elm trees crossing above our street, and below to the front bushes, white birch, and a prickly hawthorn tree. I could not see the world yet from the bigger stained glass window downstairs in the front door.

A glittery, multicolored crystal orb now stands on a birdbath base where the hawthorn eventually dropped its orange fruit, and a great specimen of mulberry replaced the birch. What made that view so special was the glass. Real leaded red, yellow, and green chunks, but it allowed a clear view of a delightfully distorted reality. It clearly served no function other than curb appeal. It matched the stained glass in our front door. Outside, it looked like a window. Inside, though, it was more like a colorful floor vent.

I might never have noticed it if I didn’t find it when I was very young. It was behind rods of old clothing (the Halloween rack), suitcases, cots and camping gear, wrapping paper, written papers, stacks of books and blankets, and almost always either extreme heat or cold. But there were a few nice days — I especially recall watching the older children walk home from school.

That vision changed me, because it displayed more than the reality it represented. Crudely speaking, it opened the door on perspective. This world looks different from here, as it surely does from there.

My spontaneous Ipsoscope, right now, is use this blog to demonstrate what it looks like and where it comes from, in my head. So, maybe this is the providential moment at which Brother Pete’s conception of Ipsoscope (how long ago? 30+ years?) finally means something personal to me. In Latinish, ipso scope translates, “himself view.” He looks, or What he sees. I always saw it as introspection but no longer. From Greek skeptesthai (from which we also get skeptic) and Italian scopo, meaning target, now makes sense.

This blog is, then, “his target.” I love everything that suggests or implies. It is what I aim for, and the bullseye that I hope to wear.