Recently I attended a gathering at the home of a writer friend who lives in Marin County, California.

Her house overlooks San Rafael Bay. The guests oohed and aahed over her workspace, which has a full wall of window facing the water. There were ducks and other creatures within feeding distance. Everything was bright and sunny. If we weren’t talking, the air was filled with silence and the occasional sound of a nonhuman species.

Scary.

I’d never survive in such a space, let alone do anything productive. I’d be too nervous, thinking maybe the world had ended for humans, or wondering if an ocean mutant might break through the glass and land on my lap. The space was too open, held too much wildlife. The only “buildings” in view were a few other houses around the edge of the Bay. Nothing over two stories.

I prefer caves.

My office is small and dark. I keep it that way by having my blinds closed during the day. The only things in my field of view are my 26″ computer, a TV, 2 printers, scanner, DVD player, and books, of course. Nothing scary, like a duck or a bird, or long weeds full of insects, or the blinding sun.

I’m sure this preference comes from childhood. My bedroom window for the first 21 years of my life was about one yard away from the jukebox in the pizza parlor next door. The only sounds I heard were human (recorded or otherwise, and sometimes accompanied by sirens); the only vista a brick wall on one side, a fire escape on the other.

The pizza parlor that was an extension of my bedroom.

I spent the next 20 years shuffling from one big city to another. Boston; Hartford, Connecticut; The Bronx; Washington, DC. Not exactly prairie land.

The combination of buildings, subway tunnels, and city noises is still comforting to me, and the place I work best.

Am I in the minority here?