Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you’ve closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.

Tutu frames forgiveness not as denying harm or pretending everything is fine, but as an active, chosen practice that changes one’s inner conditions. The “dank room” suggests the psychic atmosphere of resentment, grief, or bitterness—stagnant not because light and air do not exist, but because one has shut oneself off from them. The sun and fresh air outside imply that healing and freedom are available, yet they require agency: opening the window and drawing the curtains. Forgiveness, in this view, is less a feeling that arrives on its own than a deliberate act that lets in clarity, perspective, and the possibility of renewed relationship or peace.