Show & Tell

Writing myself home

Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash

I’m currently listening to a Halloween ambiance video from YouTube, I’m not sure why I do this now, other than for the sheer joy of it. A jaunty little tune is the soundtrack to this piece. I was talking to my husband not long ago about how I much prefer to write the way I speak versus writing in a more polished way. I also marveled at his brain and his ability to constantly think in metaphors. My brain doesn’t work that way. I’m much more literal and concrete. Raw? Real? Metaphors don’t come easily to me. I write plainly in a telling manner, but I want you always to feel something, even if it’s small.

It’s why I shared with you what I’m listening to. Infer from that what you want. Or listen to it too.

I have been thinking about writing my memoir. I haven’t actually been writing it much, outside of a few bits and pieces. My brain again does the thing where it spins itself out and goes down a bunch of winding roads, none of them leading to where I originally wanted to go. Such is the writing life for me.

I’m so much of a teller, not a show-er. I want to be a show-er though. Come with me for a moment will you?

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I want to show you what my bedroom looked like at my grandma’s house.

Just off the hallway, the door was to the right, pushing it open with it’s poster of Gandalf, you find yourself facing..

The light mint green walls of a 10 by 10 space.

The closet to the right that was constantly about to explode with my stuff.

The inability to see the always cold white flowered tile floor because everything lived on it.

The pictures from choir, school dances, and friends, black light and band posters, and handwritten poems, all plastered to my walls.

The two foot in length by one foot in height wooden sign that leaned against the wall atop my dresser in the left hand corner that said “Messy Mesa.”

The dresser was a dark almost cherry wood that had brass handles you had to lift up to pull out and then would make a tinny clank sound against the brass plate they normally rested on.

The canopy bed that had no canopy was directly to the left on entering. It still held the white painted wooden poles with little gold knobs on top (I used to unscrew them and use them as a potential weapon when I was home alone and afraid).

The white frilly bedding buried under my New Kids On The Block sleeping bag that I refused to throw away. I was always a guest - even in my own bedroom.

The yellow and green handmade toy box that was a gift from my dad, it sat at the end of my bed. One of the only gifts I ever received from him as a kid.

In my teenage years I added an armoire and entertainment center. Shrinking the already shrunken space. Both resided on the opposite wall to my bed. The window was just behind the entertainment center, blinds perpetually drawn to keep out the sun.

My favorite thing about my room was the middle of my bed. It’s where I did all my reading, writing in my journals, and talking on the phone. It’s also where I had my heart broken and where I fell in love. It’s where dreams came true and a recurring nightmare began. I lived many lives in the middle of my bed.

The day I left home, the bed stayed behind. I never sat in the middle of another bed again.

The room and the house surrounding it have been claimed by another now, the seller gutted it all and started over. The only thing remaining the same is the tree I climbed in the front yard and the metal awning with the curly q S’s in the metal legs that hold it up.

I wonder if the rain still sounds the same falling on that tin roof.

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I must admit that writing right now in this timeline feels strange. To share something so small, when so many big things are happening, almost feels wrong. Every now and then though, I have to shift my attention. To constantly consume it all will drive me mad. Believe me when I tell you that I know the privilege it is to write that sentence. Really, to write a sentence at all.

I want to tell you that it will get better, because it will eventually, one day many moons from now. The only hope I have is that we will get out of this and build something better in the rubble of lies we were formed on. A girl can dream.

Anyway, thank you for taking a walk into my room with me. Maybe I’ll use it as a doorway into more.

I hope you’re all taking good care. Sending you lots of love.

(Also, shoutout to

Jeannine Ouellette

for helping inspire this piece with her latest intensive about Place - join us!)