“She is a Container, A Holder, Ever the Verb” Acrylic on shower curtain, grommets, gifted quilt, oil pastel As we head into our final breadth of 2021- winter holidays amidst, days still shortening, a thinness of personal capacity overlaying the collective bubble of festive joy- I am thinking about patterns. It has been a long time of living in other people’s spaces- so ingrained in my nervous system, I still get the giddy rollercoaster-plunge in my gut when I wake from bleary-eyed dream &slowly remember the life I now live- that of a homeowner. The House that Haunts Me Still stands on a Vt hill called Bergland Lane. The home scrubbed the film of childhood from me, but I always remember it as a magic place. I have never lived in a home for as long since, the record of 2yrs now given to a small apartment off of BTV’s Brookes ave. The house on Bergland was riddled with spaces marked by magic- hidden crawl spaces from room to room, a rockpile chewed through by fox dens, a loping pine tree thicker than the arm span of five children, a fallen birch that bloomed with spring, a hand-planted forest that swayed in neat rows. On Bergland Lane I had purpose. With each animal we acquired, I gravely donned the responsibility of feeding &caretaking- cleaning their cage, stall, messes in the livingroom. The home instilled a sense of rhythm. Dislocation from our home in ‘03 returned my family to an old pattern- boxing, moving, tiptoeing in homes owned by others, making peace with the things left behind. My body remembers the dislocation- the move we discovered we lost our box of ornaments, the holiday spent without kitchen access, holidays held in other people’s spaces, heatless holidays, and the hilarity of creatively finding ritual in all the shifting. This holiday I enjoy a new pattern- of building, belonging, and our first winter in a home owned by us. I enjoy this privilege with the weight of knowing housing instability is peaking in my community, across the state, across the country. Give to the mutual aids& local groups feeding /housing your neighbors as much as you put into gifts & decorations. Talk to friends about housing inclusivity in your neighborhood :) https://www.instagram.com/p/CXuMHOXF8nD/?utm_medium=tumblr
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