Someone else’s carpets, someone else’s couch, someone else’s lamps, table and chairs, bed, desk and bookshelves; someone else’s choice of paint colour -builder’s beige I believe it is called. I am going to call it “sugar cookie” instead. Looking around me I see all of these things and then I begin to see what is mine. The art on the walls, the objects that fill the cabinets, the books that fill the shelves and the sheets on the bed -my objects. Familiar objects that bring me comfort and peace of mind are hidden away behind cabinet doors and are kept safe in closed drawers. I am in my home, the place that is meant to be my refuge from the rest of the world.
The rhythm of the clothes doing somersaults in the dryer mixes with the droning pulse of the traffic that never stops, just slows down in the middle of the night and is barely audible in the wee hours of the morning. The sirens blast, warning the sea of cars to give way because someone very busy and very important must get by.
I hear a door open and close and the harsh sound of the deadbolt locks being turned to protect what mysterious objects are being kept behind the closed door just meters from my own. Then nothing. When the wind is just right, I can hear the hourly chiming of the church bell clock tower but not today, at least not after 10AM. This afternoon I heard a sound I couldn’t identify. It did not form a part of my familiar, my usual landscape, my everyday aesthetic. Outside the back window and fire escape someone or something was repeatedly falling and striking a metal surface. The ice from 8 floors above was being scraped from the gutters and sent hurtling down with no attention being paid to any pedestrians walking below. The only safety precautions evident consisted of a thin red and white banner tied between two posts on the opposite side of the street and the one car that was parked down below was swaddled in a protective mattress and particleboard armour.
Looking out my window I see a veneer of strength and power covering the underlying sorrow and oppression that is left over from an era of days gone by. Old women shuffling slowly down the street, their bodies encased within their fur coats, heads hidden under hats or scarves covering their wispy hair, shielding their weathered faces from the arctic wind that blows relentlessly, snaking its steely, cold fingers deftly between layers of protection to finally reach their brittle bones. I see young men hunched over, hurriedly traveling toward their unknown destinations, bracing themselves against the winter cold, hands in their pockets, their leather jackets and knit caps barely protecting them from the elements. I pass by men and women sitting in their warm cars seemingly waiting for Godot. He never comes, I want to tell them, but I do not have the language.
People pass each other by in the street making eye contact but showing no sign of recognition or any outward desire to connect with the person they see yet they watch each other warily, carefully. Feral dogs run by in a pack, following the lead of their alpha dog and barking fiercely at cars or trucks that pass them by, all the while searching for a scrap to eat and a place to shelter themselves from the deadly cold.
It is winter and the trees have no leaves, they are simply skeletal reminders of a season past and a marker of what is to come. The sun rises as quickly as it sets and outlines their ghostly silhouettes, turning their branches into fleshless bones reaching for the skies, never quite grasping the edge of the cloud cover that appears to be just beyond their reach.
This is the inventory of my everyday aesthetic.
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