Personal Space

[poliphilo]

I was sitting quietly by myself in someone else's space.

I was a little anxious.

I could feel that I didn't fit. The walls were full of memories and habits and aspirations that weren't mine.

Not ghosts, not hostile, just not to do with me.

The weather of another personality.

All houses are haunted houses.

I am sitting now in my own space. Settled. Attending to my own weather. Listening to the noises I don't normally bother to hear: the hum of the computer, the clock that goes plonk, plonk, plonk quite slowly like water dropping into a galvanised tank and the other clock that goes tick tick tick quite fast like an insect.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like high ceilings. I supose it's what I'm used to.

Do these women expect to move back in some day? I can't think of any other reason for them wanting to preserve it as a shrine to their childhood.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

The sisters plan to eventually sell the house to the church next door. It seems to be an old plan.

I can't imagine what their problem is--one lives in Georgia (five hours away) and the other in California. They never come here.

I'll buy another house someday, and paint every wall. (These are all ivory, forever--I'm not allowed to paint, have pets, or pull up the awful carpet. But it's still a pleasant house, somehow. I just itch to be free of their haunting it, in their hovering way.)