There is a problem with leaving the country for any amount of time. It's not to do with taxes, confusing the Student Loan people, or anything else, well... important.
It's more of a general feeling of bafflement. Not remembering where things are for example. Yesterday I got frustrated hunting around the kitchen for the bread bin, then a perspex bowl. They were, of course, in the places they've been kept since before last November; but for some reason locations seem to be escaping me.
Then there's the small matter of my room. While I was away, my mother picked up the hints I'd been leaving and gave it a new lease of life. The top of my wardrobe - previously a minefield of dusty speakers, guitar cases and designer shopping bags full of tat - was cleared, my books were separated into neat, plastic boxes and put in their place. My blu-tac ridden walls were repainted a fresh white (or magnolia, if we're being all Homebase about it all) and the big Bang and Olufsen television from downstairs magicked itself in the place of my old skool TV / Video combo. I even had a new bed. It was a joy to the eyes, but all the rearranging hasn't been easy on the brain.
You see, things are missing. Things that, by all accounts, I'm fairly sure wouldn't have met their end in the ominous Black Bagging of '09.
For instance: there was a dress bought in both colours, of which I can now only find one. Perfume bottles relocated to my sister's old room are all accounted for...except, of course, for the favourite Dior scent I'd replenished before leaving. And for months, months, I'd longed to blow-dry my hair with the big, round styling brush I'd left behind. But when the moment came - once I'd located my missing hairdryer, that is - the brush was nowhere to be found. Even my car keys are bereft of their cupcake trinkets. I don't dare check my jewelry box for casualties; I'm not sure the freshly painted walls will survive any more head-banging.
Of course, no one can explain the strange disappearances. Why would they? They're little things only I would ever notice gone.
All the items have simply vanished into the abyss. An abyss which opens up the minute a bedroom is vacated for eight months.
Travelling, a re-painted room, and everything just as she left it on her return? Well, I suppose you can't have it all.
Subscribe
5 comments:
Same here when I moved to France. I came back to a new bed, freshly painted room and... nothing. It was all boxed away neatly, with bits missing.
The photos that were once blu-tac'd to the wall had magicked themselves into pretty frames along my window ledge.
Mmmmm; I'd d o a midnight raid on your sisters room.
I once gave by brother £15,000 to look after. A year later when I wanted it back it was gone. I'm not joking either. 10 years later by brother still hasn't even mentioned the subject.
Even after all that and him being a royal pain in the bum I'd so it all over again.
If you do find all the booty in your sisters room don't hate her, just love her for being who she is...
I'm not making any comparisons here, but it reminds me of this poem by Charles Bukowski.
Metamorphosis
a girlfriend came in
built me a bed
scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor
scrubbed the walls
vacuumed
cleaned the toilet
the bathtub
scrubbed the bathroom floor
and cut my toenails and
my hair.
then
all on the same day
the plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet
and the toilet
and the gas man fixed the heater
and the phone man fixed the phone.
now I sit in all this perfection.
it is quiet.
I have broken off with all 3 of my girlfriends.
I felt better when everything was in
disorder.
it will take me some months to get back to normal:
I can't even find a roach to commune with.
I have lost my rhythm.
I can't sleep.
I can't eat.
I have been robbed of
my filth.
I'd personally love to come back to a clean, repainted, tidied room after months of travel - but I am a Clean Freak from Hell. Control Freak too, when I get the chance.
I've always been glad to not have a sister. I would have hated to share my shit ... and even worse to have to worry about the unapproved boring.
Post a Comment