Moving in
For one month short of six years I lived with F & R, people I've known since the 1970's. But now their daughter's coming back to live with them; so they needed the room. I found another place, and moved in this morning, April 1st, 2005.
By 10:23 a.m. I had my computer up and running. Having thus reassured myself that it works here as well as it did in my old place, I could begin to feel somewhat to home in my new place, though my other things were still unpacked.
My new room is quite large, 15 feet by 13 feet, and also quite old. For a while I sat there, gazing at the ornate door casings, the old wooden ceiling, and the bare overhead light-socket which looks as though it might be from the 1930's or 40's—relatively new compared to the house itself. I'm told this house dates from the 1880's, and there was no electricity back then. That was before my grandfather came to America. Before the first airplane flew, before automobiles filled the streets, before Jack London wrote Sea Wolf.
I thought of the long-ago inhabitants of this place, whoever they might have been. Were they happy here? Did things go well for them? And though they're long gone from this earth, might this room in some sense, still belong to them? Truly a bizarre thought, it seemed to me as it crossed my mind, but as I sit here thinking about it, maybe it's not so strange to feel that this place and even this whole world might in some sense belong, at least in part, to the many generations who peopled it in the past and also to those who'll inhabit it during the decades and centuries yet to come.
And so, I set about unpacking my stuff, arranging my books on the shelves of my bookcase, and putting posters, maps and postcards on the extensive walls. I also have some old calendar pictures, among them reproductions of French Impressionist paintings; it might be appropriate to hang a 19th century street scene by Renoir, something by Monet, and perhaps a self-portrait of Van Gough together on the same wall. And since this is, after all, the 21st century, I'm also putting up a 2005 calendar commemorating this as the Chinese Year of the Rooster.
Daniel Borgström
April 2005
By 10:23 a.m. I had my computer up and running. Having thus reassured myself that it works here as well as it did in my old place, I could begin to feel somewhat to home in my new place, though my other things were still unpacked.
My new room is quite large, 15 feet by 13 feet, and also quite old. For a while I sat there, gazing at the ornate door casings, the old wooden ceiling, and the bare overhead light-socket which looks as though it might be from the 1930's or 40's—relatively new compared to the house itself. I'm told this house dates from the 1880's, and there was no electricity back then. That was before my grandfather came to America. Before the first airplane flew, before automobiles filled the streets, before Jack London wrote Sea Wolf.
I thought of the long-ago inhabitants of this place, whoever they might have been. Were they happy here? Did things go well for them? And though they're long gone from this earth, might this room in some sense, still belong to them? Truly a bizarre thought, it seemed to me as it crossed my mind, but as I sit here thinking about it, maybe it's not so strange to feel that this place and even this whole world might in some sense belong, at least in part, to the many generations who peopled it in the past and also to those who'll inhabit it during the decades and centuries yet to come.
And so, I set about unpacking my stuff, arranging my books on the shelves of my bookcase, and putting posters, maps and postcards on the extensive walls. I also have some old calendar pictures, among them reproductions of French Impressionist paintings; it might be appropriate to hang a 19th century street scene by Renoir, something by Monet, and perhaps a self-portrait of Van Gough together on the same wall. And since this is, after all, the 21st century, I'm also putting up a 2005 calendar commemorating this as the Chinese Year of the Rooster.
Daniel Borgström
April 2005
