The People in My House
I live alone—and yet, all around me there are people.
Each time I use the bejeweled tea bag squeezer, I think of Cathie who gave it to me. At first I didn’t even know whether I would use it. Now I use it each time I make tea and think of Cathie.
When I sit on my bed and look at the oil painting of the ocean at Ocean City, New Jersey, I see my granddaughter Lissa, as she sat on the bench facing the ocean and painted—for two days one year, and for one day the next year. People stopped and looked over her shoulder, nodding positively.
There’s a picture in my kitchen of people at a carousel. It’s cast with blue colors and because I love riding carousels, I love the picture and think of granddaughter, Sadie, who went to the recycling center with her Dad and found it in the little place where they pull out special things that shouldn’t go to the dump just yet. I smile and think of Sadie bringing it home to me.
Around Christmas-time I think of Will Albertus because I have in my vision three of his carpentry creations—a Christmas wooden puzzle which I have to figure out anew every single year; a rolling Santa which keeps tumbling off the end because I forget how to do it gently; and the little wooden person supposedly trapped in a box.
I smile at the sight of any of them but especially when I’m feeling trapped, I think of Will and look again at the figure in the box. She’s behind bars but the bars only exist on one side of the four-sided open box. All she has to do to get out is turn around and walk. I consider whether that could be true of my entrapment also.
I like living in my apartment—and I also like living with the people who are constantly present in my three room surroundings. I also like living with the four people who live next door in the attached house to my three rooms.
The People In My House
