The problem lies in which bedroom, as my childhood was filled with arranging and rearranging. Never quite settled, never anything quite totally mine. I suppose my first room was the guest bedroom. Two single beds, first door on the right of the hallway, with the tiniest of walk-in closets, and, of course, the doorway to the attic at its outermost edge. A shared space with nothing that belonged to me except my body and the clothes I stored in my grandparent's spare dressers. The little closet, still full of clothes that hung on my grandparents bodies some days. I would sit in that closet and take in deep breaths. It wasn't that it smelled good or bad, just that it smelled. I didn't think then of it as the smell of the elderly, I thought of it as the smell of home. I wonder now, would I recognize that scent on my grandmother's body today?
At night the blank walls lurched with dark, reaching shadows. While daytime frolics with the Ouji board were invigoration, the night held looming fears that visitors were hiding in the attic. Perhaps they had already made it stealthily from the attic to my special closet. My sacred space now spilling over with dark figures seeking my demise. My mind would reel before bed as I stared at the ceiling. This blank room became a swirl of threats when darkness fell. Not because anything bad actually happened there, it was the way the wind snuck up and down the attic stairs, rattling the doorknob to our room. Menacing, conniving. I'd remind myself my grandparents were just on the other side of the wall, another room I would later call mine, though it never held more than my body, my clothes, and one loud stereo of mine either.
In the summers the room would be stifling. The attic air spilling down the stairs into our space. I'd lay in bed with no sheets and keep my body spread as far apart from itself as possible. The bedsheet would begin to consume my heat and return the warmth to my body. There was no respite from the heat. Not even the roaring fan down the hall, which mocked my body with its brazen whirring. That heavy air became the bitter taste of childhood letdowns and lost wishes.
Looking for the T[ea]
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