Woodwork Zen

[geo4real]

I’m redecorating another room in the vast suburban edifice that is, God help me, my house.

Let me say this up front:  I never wanted this house.  Everything about it feels alien:  too big, too suburban, too late 1980’s, too electronically wired.  It’s too needy, too greedy, too consuming of precious resources like time and energy and money.

Comments

[sue_parsons]

Oh, my gosh, this is a marvelous piece, and how well-titled! Your calling back to the original creation of the house, the echoes and flashbacks, I found very evocative. If this is how all your redecorating is going to go, then you are going to have a very spiritually satisfying house after all.

[geo4real]

Thank you so much! Sometimes I think I'm the only person who notices (or cares about) the small things, the details. Life is full of details. I've heard it said that the devil resides in details, but so, I think, does meaning...

As for the spiritually satisfying house... I suspect The House and I will be facing off against one another until the end of time! But thank you for the lovely thought. I'm going to keep working toward that goal.

[quiller77]

This was a cool post. Very interesting and entertaining.

I totally understand the sense of being aware of the carpenters. I had the oddest (most sublime) experience when I walked into Notre Dame 5 years ago. I was filled with a sense of the stonemasons and other artisans who had worked on the cathedral, in some cases for their whole lives. I could feel the love that went into their work. And it moved me to tears (me, who rarely cries and really doesn't like doing so).

(Oh how I wish that my house could be thus salvaged. It has no redeeming qualities.)

[geo4real]

What an amazing and ... enormous... experience! It gives such a sense of connections through time. Utterly wonderful.

Are you sure your house has no redeeming qualities? I'm constantly being told that my issues with mine are entirely in my own head - that it's fine, lovely, even. *shrugs* Eye of the beholder, I guess!

[josie_amadeo]

This was beautifully written, and I felt the breath of the piece run through me when I read it. Lovely.

On another note: It is not ACID green, it is lime green. And your disclaimer that I chose it in middle school seems to point to a fact that it is not something I would choose today: which is just silly. of course I would make the same choice.

And for reasons which I think are part of the underlying tone of your piece. That room seems very much like a cave, but when you lie in the bed (may it rest in pieces) it feels like the walls are inanimate, but at the same time breathing, and with each breath, slowly closing in. It is dark and ominous, and yet full of life at the same time. The lime green just makes sure I can see the walls and that they are not actually respiring in on me.

Well that's how I feel sometimes, I also love LIME green.

KAD

[geo4real]

Oh, thank you!

On the issue of green, I think we'll just continue to agree to disagree... heh heh However, it should be noted that I'm the one with the paintbrush in my hand at the moment...

"may it rest in pieces" - ROTFL

The whole breathing walls thing - isn't it weird how every room, every space in this house has a completely differnt feeling to it? I mean, the whole house has a personality, there's no doubt - an active one. But the differences in the spaces are marked. Do you have the same experience when you sleep in other rooms?