Claiming the homestead...well the roomstead...

I am currently sleeping at my brother's house. I'm using the word "at" instead of "in" on purpose. Ditto on using "sleeping" instead of '"living." I sleep in the spare room and have a strange half life of trying to cram a whole life into one room. It's really half a room, the other half being occupied by a desk that isn't mine, and a chest that isn't mine, and a mirror and a window and four walls that are not mine. I have always been a person preoccupied with space. The space one occupies, the place one chooses to live, is a reflection of themselves, a part of their disticnt geography. Living in someone else's space wears on something inside me. It isn't painful or even annoying, but it disturbs my balance. I think of it as dropping small stones into a lake. The stones enter the water easily, they fall to the sandbottom effortlessly, the water accomodates them quietly, but the effect on the surface is easily seen in circles rippling out from the drop point. The stone is gone, but the water is not the same. That's how I feel about my current situation--rippled.

In the half room there is little evidence that the space I am currently occupying is mine. I accept a full part of the blame. I didn't make it it mine because I thought I would be transient. I was only supposed to be there for a few weeks and then take up residence in the basement. The basement was also not going to be a permanent situation, but less temporary than the spare bedroom. Things don't always turn out the way they are planned and now I realize my temporary space has been mine for nine months and the only thing about it recognizeable as me is the clutter. (All artists need clutter to be happy). So, I am newly resolved to make the space mine. Transient or not I realized I must fully occupy my space. I must own it, color it, fill it up. I must leave my mark, even if the mark is temporary.