Underneath the stairs is a space that we never go. We used to go there, but we stopped. In other words, it is off-limits. I'm sure you didn't mean to set up that expectation when you organized the house that way. I'm sure you wanted us to know every bit of what was there. But in fact what happens is that quiet, hiding away. That pushing out of sight. It happens in every family to one extent or another. It happens without intention and without malice. That doesn't mean it doesn't do terrible harm.
I was twelve when I learned what was hidden there.
Home sick I was enjoying a long day at home alone watching the X-Files. I had an unreasonable urge to watch the series from start to finish. The thing was it was difficult to find my own headspace. Whenever I sat down to work the voices of a thousand critics entered my head. And the over-riding voice. The one that likes to believe that it knows everything and doesn't need to be told - not necessarily a bad thing when I was young, when I was 12 and what they were telling me was nearly uniformly unhelpful. But, when you grow up and get out. When you encounter others in the world who do have something to teach - who might offer a life line - then it is something to listen. It is worth it. Still. Old habits die hard. Particularly habits engineered for the soul's survival. How to convince it that it doesn't need to fight so hard? How to convince it to love again? or learn to love in the first place?
I imagine that it will take listening. I imagine that it will take strength. And I imagine that I can. I can. I can. The whittling of the spear. The concoction of the knife. The decision to continue. Remade each day. This is what I am here for? what am I here for? That's all question reasonable to ponder. But that has nothing to do with the tick tick tick that I heard coming from under the stairs that day back in the fall. That day I was left alone to my own devices and found my urges taking me searching throughout the house for clues to the adults that lived there. For hints and indications. For scraps of romance and dreams that may have existed before me. For some clue as to where I'd come from.
Because, how else do we learn? In another age there would be so many decisions made for me...
I was twelve when I learned what was hidden there.
Home sick I was enjoying a long day at home alone watching the X-Files. I had an unreasonable urge to watch the series from start to finish. The thing was it was difficult to find my own headspace. Whenever I sat down to work the voices of a thousand critics entered my head. And the over-riding voice. The one that likes to believe that it knows everything and doesn't need to be told - not necessarily a bad thing when I was young, when I was 12 and what they were telling me was nearly uniformly unhelpful. But, when you grow up and get out. When you encounter others in the world who do have something to teach - who might offer a life line - then it is something to listen. It is worth it. Still. Old habits die hard. Particularly habits engineered for the soul's survival. How to convince it that it doesn't need to fight so hard? How to convince it to love again? or learn to love in the first place?
I imagine that it will take listening. I imagine that it will take strength. And I imagine that I can. I can. I can. The whittling of the spear. The concoction of the knife. The decision to continue. Remade each day. This is what I am here for? what am I here for? That's all question reasonable to ponder. But that has nothing to do with the tick tick tick that I heard coming from under the stairs that day back in the fall. That day I was left alone to my own devices and found my urges taking me searching throughout the house for clues to the adults that lived there. For hints and indications. For scraps of romance and dreams that may have existed before me. For some clue as to where I'd come from.
Because, how else do we learn? In another age there would be so many decisions made for me...
