In the middle of our street. Our house… Yeah, I couldn’t stop. Me and the ear worms. My mind never shuts up. I can be singing two songs at once, like now. Confusing? Maybe, but mash-ups are a thing so I’m going with it! Weird is good.
Today’s delving question is…If your mind was a house, what would the house look like?
I’d have to say, it would be something between Jack Skellington’s house from the Nightmare Before Christmas with its odd, thin, crookedly angled towers and the Addams family house full of oddities and secret rooms that lead into one another or dump you out the front. Even the gate is aware and traps people in order to keep them out. Add a moat and you have it. Sounds pretty close to me.
There would have to be an attic or two full of thoughts I haven’t seen for years, all dusty and forgotten and a basement where I’ve shoved the things I don’t want to think about, overgrown with thorns and vines to dissuade myself from getting too close. There’s a mysterious beast living down there that fires up the anger at the drop of a hat without my knowing why…most likely because something buried there almost came to light.
The rooms are lushly furnished with velvet drapes and fancy moldings, full of scroll work, carvings and walls covered in paintings. Shadows pass along the walls, eyes shine from the darkness and dramas play out behind every door with a familiar set of characters, lit by candles along the walls. There are often earthquakes that shake the building, like the House of Usher, it’s built on shaky ground but on the bright side, the curse is a myth and retrofits have begun.
There are always new visitors who appear from nowhere and create their own stories; each room is populated by at least one. Some rooms are long neglected and cold, some warm and inviting full of laughter and books. It often rains and plunges the house into darkness, making the shadows darker and a heavy feeling overtakes the place, but like all storms they pass.
It’s the most comforting of houses though its labyrinthine halls each are haunted, it holds sweet memories of the past. sweet smells of celebrations past float through and make the paintings that remind come alive. Plants and flowers line window boxes, a touch of oft unnoticed femininity.
There is a room, of course, of kitsch, complete with velvet Elvis, pink flamingos and various bits of ephemera from different periods. There are lost rooms mixed up and uncatalogued; a ticket from a play, a velvet coat from the opera in the style of Mozart, a 1940’s style phone. It is the room of lost things; a place to sift through and reminisce on a rainy day with a pot of tea.
I love the place, gain solace from it. Anyone else would get lost. Hell, I do, but it’s at least an entertaining place to spend an afternoon, or a lifetime.
Tangent Off the Lifeline 