Spaces

When I was little, I used to dream of turning our closed in side porch into a bedroom.  It was just big enough for a mattress, surrounded by  windows that stretched from the ceiling to midway down the wall, and I imagined lying on that mattress and staring out at snowflakes as they fell.  It would be my own little hovel, shut off from the rest of the house by a heavy door connecting it to the foyer.  I would stick something heavy in front of the door to the outside, a tall dresser, so no one could come in, and I would lay on the bed and revel in having this space all to myself, this space that was only big enough for me.

Lately I feel that way again.  It’s part of what I love so much about this tiny first floor apartment in Iowa.  It feels like a cave, partially underground, the bottom of the windows level with the grass outside.  It’s just big enough for me and Jerod and the cats.  Stuff is cluttered in everywhere, crowding in to wrap its arms around me and make me feel safe.  I draw the blinds and sink into the couch and feel warm, unlike that apartment in Denver that was so big and wide and high, with cold hardwood floors.  It was too exposed and sunny, cold, unlike the rest of the city.

I remember the thrill when I first found Best Food’s Mayonnaise in the grocery store in Denver.  It was our first trip to King Soopers after we arrived.  I was curious to know, after reading Tom Robbins’ “Till Lunch Do Us Part” in which he describes what he would want his last meal to be if he were on deathrow (a tomato sandwich on Wonder bread, smeared with a thick layer of Best Food’s mayonnaise, known as Hellman’s mayonnaise east of the Rockies), if Denver would have Hellman’s or Best Food’s mayonnaise, since technically it’s east of the Rockies, but so close to the Rockies that it could  almost be classified as west, for regional food purposes.  The grocery store shelves , though, were filled with both, side by side.  For the longest time I bought only Best Food’s in an effort to convince myself that I was really in Denver.  This was evidence.  I held it in my hand.  I used it on my sandwiches.  It proved my existence in that beautiful mile high city even more than the teeny tiny bit of mountain that was visible outside the bedroom window if we leaned to the side just right.

Right now I long for mountains, for those black, foreboding shapes pasted against the sky that reminded me everyday that there were things in the world bigger than I am.  I thought I wanted wide open spaces, skies that stretched as far as the eye can see, and maybe I do, but I know that deep down, when I’m given too many options, I don’t seem to know what to do with them.

Advertisement