The Room

 

You are sitting in a room. You are sitting at a desk or relaxing staring at a screen scrolling through text, sometimes called ‘reading’.

Stop and look around the room. How is it decorated? Is it comfortable? Is the door closed?

A room is four walls. You can only be in one room at a time. A house is made from a bunch of rooms put together. Some houses feel like one big room designed by heating/cooling companies. Some houses are tiny with little room to turn around.

Some rooms have names. There is a bathroom for porcelain accoutrements. There is a bedroom for sleeping. There are rooms called dining rooms for a place to eat. There are room called closets that hold the clothing that isn’t on the floor. There are never enough closets and they are never big enough.

There are specialty rooms. The kid’s room, the poolroom, the entertainment room, the nursery room for the baby, the craft’s room and even a room where you can keep your powder dry. A room for all your books is a library and a room to cook your food is a kitchen. If there is a shed outside to hold the tools and lawnmower, it is just another room.

Most rooms are four walls. There is a ceiling and a floor. A room might have one window or more. The windows might be small or floor to ceiling.

How is your room decorated? Ceiling light? Ceiling fan? Curtains? Shades? Painted walls? Wallpaper? Carpeted? Rugs? Chairs? Sofas? Tables? Accent lights? Picture frames? Mirrors? Trinkets?

‘Tis the season where there are additional decorations to give the room a festive look only to be taken back down and store away until next year.

Are all the rooms decorated the same? Does your house have a theme?

As you sit here in this room, take another look around. Is there a pile of clothing that will be picked up later? Is your dog or cat sleeping? Is the remote within reach? Is the television on in the other room with no one watching it? Is your drink on the left or the right? Are you staring at your phone hoping it will ring? What do you see when you look out the window?

When you get up and leave this room do you turn off the electronics? Do you close the door? Now this room has become quiet storage for you stuff until you return.

When you enter another room, was it waiting for you? Are those stacks of magazines you’ve been reading still in the same spot? Are the lights on from your last visit?

While you coop with isolation or quarantine or lock-down, you have been recommended to stay in your room. You can pace from room to room and back again but what you see out the window is a place you are not allowed to go.

Do you feel boxed in? Do you feel claustrophobic? Do you feel you are living in a cell? That is a room too.

 

Just like you can’t live in the past or live in the future; you can only live in one room at a time.