Memory/ies of Space

This is just a little after reading parts of Gretel Ehrlich's 'The Solace of Open Spaces.' Please indulge me this moment of abandon. I just need to do something else, something other than what I've been doing for what already seems like forever.

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I remember entering that house and looking around, and not knowing where to look. Almost every space on the wall had some kind of ornament, or painting, or picture, or a hanging plant, or a mirror of some sort. I felt like there was no place where my eyes could look, move, breathe. In the living room, I remember not knowing where to sit, because there were just too many chairs, sofas, couches, stools, big and small tables, each one elaborately designed, magnificently solid. Remembering the floor, I know I had been overwhelmed by the richness of the carpet's red, but barely seen, because its every inch was covered. I remember feeling, rather urgently, despite my confusion, the need to sit, and to choose fast where to sit. Because if not, the things in that house would all close down on me. Or standing there, I would become another piece of furniture, another thing.

*****

I need some blank wall in a house to fix my gaze on, meet with my eyes as I think blank thoughts, paint with my own's imagination's creations. It's hard to do that when everywhere you turn, there is a pair of eyes looking, the head of a stuffed animal that seemingly mocks, the green of some indoor plant, an obscure water painting, or worse, your startled self staring back at you. I need space to move my feet. I cannot compete with the heaviness of objects. Clumsy and awkward, I need the freedom to walk around without worrying about crashing a crystal vase, a stand-up antique ashtray, or a sculpture worth more than all my possessions put together, perhaps even my life.

*****

What is it about filling up space? Some say that every space in the house should be occupied to show that you are blessed with material abundance, which would then attract more--more things, more wealth, more successes. It is also to guarantee that there are no empty nooks and crannies where evil spirits could lurk. It is to make sure no bad things are hiding in the shadows wide spaces make.

*****

With a picture on the wall beside you, an object that stands right beside where you sit, an ornament that hangs right before your very eyes, there is always something solid to look at, to fasten to, when the world gets soft and squishy, and you are uncomfortable. It seems that it's better to stare at an object and say something commonplace about it than comment on an emptiness in the wall when the conversation starts to die.

*****

Perhaps, there is a need to surround ourselves with all these objects, so that when our body starts to break, tear to pieces, fall apart, there are things around us that can hold us in, keep us together. Sometimes, inside my body, there is a certain kind of hollowness. A wide space engulfs me, and I cease to be. So I eat, drink, indulge, wanting to be solid, seeking matter, needing to be body. But the heaviness doesn't last. Space invades me again.