A window’s reflection can briefly place your own face inside the world you were watching.

You are never entirely outside the thing you are looking at. A reflection catching your face in a shop window is a small reminder that the observer is standing in the street too, part of the crowd rather than a viewer of it. It is easy to move through a day feeling like an audience, and the correction is usually accidental and slightly startling.

When you notice yourself watching a room, a family, or a city as though it were a scene, step in. Say something to someone. Participation is generally available and mostly a matter of remembering you were included.