There was this place.
And she really liked it because she just did. She didn’t need to explain herself but she could if she wanted to.
The walls were different colors and the smell of paint lingered everyday in new ways. Fresh paint, flaked paint, dust mixed with paint–the sweetness filled the main floor.
Furniture decorated the rooms in interesting ways, yet profoundly dynamic. Like a picture might be leaning against the wall not hung up and collecting dust, but the painting justified the dirty crime committed of neglect. Always a project or an idea one could finish creating someday in a 3 legged wooden chair or with a piece of bottle glass from the ocean.
This house promised everything but had nothing.
She and anyone else would leave only to come back. Sometimes she’d see how long she could stay away just for fun.
She really liked this house. She liked coming back.
The room she spent most of her time was were the sofas matched the color of the floors but not without intention. And in contrast, the tapestried rug in the room’s center broke up the affair with its deep, dark shades. The wall she faced to exit the room and the house itself revealed the rug’s lush color with its own mysterious matching shade. But only this wall had been painted as such. Only the exit wall. The other walls matched the sofa–like the floors–with inviting brightness.
Everything intentional in this house. Nothing to give but everything to promise.
The windows were the first thing she’d see walking into the room. Windows. Glass panes with wooden frames double layered carefully. Curtains drawn most times to show the trees, that old dirt road beyond the creek, and the reminder of green on earth.
Green, so green.
She could breathe when she stepped into the house; the room. But every room in the house promised peace and love. Just didn’t have nothing. She’d sit their for hours. She’d laugh at time. She’d sweat. She’d sleep. She’d eat. She’d do it again the next day. This house loved her. She really liked this house.
Then she stopped laughing one day. The end didn’t come with surprise. She had started to spend more time away. Laughing at time in other places.
She started to forget what was everything in all that nothing. Even sometimes after being reminded.
She didn’t know why she’d waste away. She just believed the houses promises and most times didn’t even understand why she did.
Only the house had nothing. She couldn’t accept the nothingness from the house. Maybe she didn’t need to.
But she accepted it anyway.
At night they’d plug in Christmas lights to highlight the hallway floor and around the outline of the room. The lights made her sleepy and excited. Excited for the morning. She believed morning would always come, but naively. Because she really liked the house in the morning.
She’d wake up to light pouring through the sliding shutters and music playing gently beyond her bedroom walls. There was never a fragrance of bacon or eggs but on good mornings, there was coffee.
She’d lay there unmoving at first. The house woke her up and demanded her attention. So she stared at the walls and the shutter shadows on the floor before she did anything else.
Sanctuary
Noun, plural sanc·tu·ar·ies.
1 a sacred or holy place.
2 Judaism.
a) the Biblical tabernacle or the Temple in Jerusalem.
b) the holy of holies of these places of worship.
3 an especially holy place in a temple or church.
4 the part of a church around the altar; the chancel.
5 a church or other sacred place where fugitives were formerly entitled to immunity from arrest.
6 immunity afforded by refuge in such a place.
7 any place of refuge; asylum.
8 a tract of land where birds and wildlife, especially those hunted for sport, can breed and take refuge in safety from hunters ❤ ❤ ❤
The house was her sanctuary.
The house made her holy.
Holy – inspiring fear, awe, or grave distress
The house was her temple.
Temple – an edifice or place dedicated to the service or worship of a deity or deities
She was no longer a fugitive in the house.
Fugitive – a person who is fleeing, from prosecution, intolerable circumstances, etc.
The house gave her immunity.
Immunity – special privilege
The house became her asylum.
Asylum-
1 (especially formerly) an institution for the maintenance and care of the mentally ill, orphans, or other persons requiring specialized assistance.
2 an inviolable refuge, as formerly for criminals and debtors; sanctuary:
Thank you for reading.
– Kelsey Jo
