|
|
Lisa's |
|
|
|
Bedrooms are created and disassembled with a bulky stack of transfer slips in between. As families grow, more may be added. Twenty-five years later, as the tree downsizes its branches, needless bedrooms are often converted into extensions of some other living area; they detect alternate possibilities and offer their handy services. Inclusive in the changes is when siblings divide and switch rooms, marking the end of an era that would have erupted much earlier if not for a simple invention we know and love called bunk beds. This alluring contraption makes sharing sleeping
quarters attractive to those who have no alternate choice, and cause
pangs of jealousy to contemporaries more fortunate.
As the grass is always greener on the other side, it is
considerably plusher on the higher bunk.
No one wants to be on the bottom, not even starting out.
Those indefinitely assigned to be bottom-bunkers are later the
overachieving adults in society, suffering from a condition called
“Top Bunk Envy.” Their senses of accomplishment will not be
completed until each one spends a full night wrapped in the comfy sheets
of glory that only an upper bunk can provide.
The competitors must arrive swinging, as pillow fights and pillow
fights alone will rightfully designate the winner of the towering
throne. I never inhabited bunk beds with my sister;
instead, I had my own room time and time again.
Just as well, we had enough to bicker about and bunk beds would
have undoubtedly complicated matters. I moved seven times since the age of eleven.
Each bedroom I tried on prompted me to wonder if it were home
sweet home. I asked myself
if every one of them had to get used to me as well.
I distinctly recall studying the four corners of one bedroom
ceiling and sensing such serenity.
Sometimes I allowed myself to ponder the idea of turning the room
upside down. Its tangible
components would not be changed; yet it would appear disturbingly
different. I intently
thought about how many occupants before me, if any, thought likewise and
shared my views. And I
wondered how many did not. Never
knowing the answer made it all the more intriguing.
I unintentionally left that tradition behind when I relocated to
the next bedroom, the one with the flowery wallpaper.
The room was small but colorful.
Almost too colorful. I
proceeded from gazing at ceiling corners to focusing my attention on a
busy wall-covering pattern, where I extracted energetic hopes laced with
fragrant possibilities. The
very last time I physically touched that room, those four lively walls
emotionally embraced me. I
wondered if they had enjoyed my temporary company and if the next tenant
would critically notice them as I had; the probability was doubtful.
Never again have I felt the pleasures of
residing with cheeringly captivating wallpaper and finding depth and
meaning while visually entranced in ceiling corners.
Rooms no longer require being mentally turned upside down to
envision their consequential physical transformations.
The idea lost its puzzling enigma, and sadly, the bedrooms have
been systematically and progressively void of individual personalities
over the years. Created,
knocked down, and passed around, they’ve all undergone their
respective time frames. Just
like the once new set of bunk beds now dressed in dust, resting quietly
in a corner of their former owner’s attic, sitting on retired frames.
I’ve permanently absorbed the constructional fascination of the
ceiling and walls that unfailingly provided nonjudgmental space for my
thoughts. Perhaps from the
angle of bunk beds, depending on which one I was looking from, I would
have seen everything differently than I ultimately did.
However, it doesn’t matter anymore.
As always, I moved on.
|
