Frozen in Time

Stuffed bears and dogs sit upon the couch next to hand-made doilies and small pillows that have lay there for years.

An old wooden door with four squares of yellow glass in the center, left only half way open, begs our entry.

Wine glasses sit alone in glass door wooden cupboards, nearly all that is left in the dining room these days.

Nearby, a glass blown bundle of grapes is on display.

Painted pictures of horses, cats and dogs, childhood crafts from years ago, remain hanging in a corner by a clouded window you can no longer see out of.

Calendar stuck on June, from what year I am not sure, with small, handwritten, pencil reminders to no one in particular anymore.

Tiny gnome figurines with squirrels sit on the windowsill in the kitchen.

Stale air sitting motionless, lingering, a blanket of cold seeping into our clothes.

Below us, clothes are hanging on the line in the basement laundry room, basket standing ready, clothes pins hanging empty.

Grey rings on white walls are ghosts where memories once lived.

Sparrow stickers sit frozen in time on sliding glass doors, guardians of a home no longer lived in or cared for, while grass, weeds and leaves from seasons past pile in wind swept corners of the once revered garden.

Children too far away to clear it out, too far for closure, too far to care or perhaps there are no children at all.

No one to see the house as living anymore.

No one to mourn or celebrate the memories made here.

What is left is the last of one’s life, an awkward collection of things leftover after the items of “value” have been removed.

A picture of one’s life, filled in by an outsider, awkwardly gazing into another’s world with an assumption of what it may have contained.

Personal belongings left to be seen by strangers hoping to fill this empty house with their new memories, breathing life into the dead, making this space a home again.

Feeling sorrow and an awkward comfort in a stranger’s home, I make assumptions and foresee an entire life spent here and strangely, in seconds, I actually can glimpse my life spent here, our life here.

And eventually I imagine the faces of the unknown strangers who will one day do the same to my home that I am doing to someone elses.

They will pick apart my belongings and make conclusions of who I was…my leftovers on display, what is left of my world exposed to strangers who walk amongst my most coveted space, imagining their life in my home as I imagine my life in someone elses space now.

And it occurs to me, does any part of who we are remain within the walls of our most personal space or are we just lent space and things for a short time, never really owning anything but our memories?