Life is a Mansion that We Build....

Being in my mid-40's and having neither children nor a husband (yet lots of interesting relationships with men) I sometimes sit back and look at my life, wondering what it's all about, if there's a significant metaphor or some other paradigm that exists out there to help me describe it to people. Mostly because I find that pop culture doesn't offer much of anything in the way of examples of what women in my circumstance are like--and by not doing so, does us a terrible disservice (the only loudmouthed example being Oprah, and, quite frankly, that's one person I do not care to emulate.) So, having no available-at-hand role models that I can easily refer to, I think of paradigms from Greek society (where women's roles were pretty rigidly structured) or I take metaphors from all those years I spent in therapy trying to make myself "normal" (which, honestly, is a really subjective state...)to come up with ways to describe my life....

Even to myself, I need to describe my life. If I don't, I begin to fall into some sort of sad-sack rut of wanting one of those mommyblogger June Cleaver lives where all the kids are cute and blond and all the husbands are loving and supportive (does that *really* happen In Real-Blog Life??) And then wondering if I'm just succumbing to pop culture peer pressure, and want something that really isn't me--just so I'll have the "social capital" and easily explained identity....

But I'm not sure that's really Me....

Anyway, as I was thinking of my life, it appeared to take the shape of a huge mansion, with each decade being another level, and relationships being wings or rooms on those levels...

The childhood years--well, they're pretty shaky. There are rooms on that level that have *always* been locked. No keys ever. Not that I'd want to open them if I *had* keys anyway. There are lots of windows, but they're concentrated in some parts--in others, there are no windows at all....

Old dead toys on the floor and a Christmas scene straight from the 60's, as if it's just waiting for everyone to wake up....

and I head on up the strange double-helix spiral staircase to....

The Twenties level that has a few unfinished wings. You can see where they were started, the timbers left rotting outside locked doors. The framework was put up, perhaps some insulation, but these wings--those relationships that were to be foundations for the future--are abandoned.

People, and places, I never got back to....

There are other rooms here, old offices and such. One room that is *very* dark and strange--poorly lit with red drapery and some old-style victorian wallpaper. Another with a disco ball and a round bed in the middle. Pale pink satin sheets...and pictures of old movie stars.

It's the Jean Harlow in me, I guess...

There are some old mannequins strewn about in the hallways--discarded fashionistas.

But a strong staircase that leads up to....

My Thirties level. There are more complete rooms here, but another wing that's closed off. Actually, sealed off with some sort of red wax. I know the rooms in there are, for the most part, finished. But I'd never live in them now (although I had a hard time sealing them up.) They're in a style that just doesn't fit--with lots of chintz pillows and faux country finishes--something I thought up on a whim out of desperation and from someone else's instructions.....

There's another big, airy room--with a sick bed. It reminds me of pictures from sanitoriums, where they used to confine TB victims. I spent a lot of time there, when there were so many things going wrong that nobody could figure them out....

It's odd how, now, I have wonderful health. I guess I owe it to that stack of bottles in the cupboard in this room, filled with all kinds of vitamins and herbs--things I used to restore my immune system.....

There's an abandoned prayer niche off to one side, filled with strange figures from a number of different faiths and belief systems. A spilled tarot deck on a meditation pillow and an air of sandalwood incense. These things are old and I have no reason to take any of them with me. I won't dust them off again, but may light a stick of incense or two on occasion, just to remember....

There's another small room, full of books and crocheting--kind of like my office now. Books of just about every kind--from art to religion to history to philosophy to classics and cheap fiction. There are projects--completed and not--some I will get to and some I won't.

From this small room, through the ceiling is a ladder that reaches through to

My Forties Space. This is most open and airy, with no new wings--a lot like an open loft. Off to one corner is a huge, dark wardrobe, carved from something like mahogany, and laquered black. There are secrets in this wardrobe, but nothing that will kill me to look at them. The key to this wardrobe, shiny and silver, hangs from a red cord in front of a very heavy lock. Sure, I can get in there any time I want, but I just don't care to open it up any more.

Sometimes people like to remind me of that wardrobe. "Oh, yeah, that. It was a phase I guess..."

Occasionally, I take something from that wardrobe. None of it fits well any more and all the implements look alien. In a certain context, they make sense...but that context doesn't make sense anymore. That context is quite different now...

Off to one corner of the loft, separated by a red Chinese screen, is a bed strewn with roses, its sheets in disarray, shrouded by a curtain. I know this space *very* well--yet few others know its secrets. I go there only sometimes, and only when the wind hits the clear brass chimes nearby... And I'm glad for that....

Off to another corner is a sturdy oak bed, near a large kitchen space with an old-style hearth. I built the hearth myself, it seems, as the brickwork isn't all that great--but it serves the purpose....

and more books, some of which I know I recently retrieved from the other lower levels...strewn all across the floor leading to a huge desk that stares out at multiple windows with a variety of glass panes--some are distorted, some colored, some clear, some not even in just yet. Different sizes and shapes. There are many, many panes to fill up, and I hope I can get them before the bad weather comes....

But the weather doesn't appear to be getting very bad--and the air on this floor is clean and healthy, for the most part.

Through one of those panes is a gold rope that leads to a basket. At the bottom of the rope is a bell, and sometimes someone rings that bell. Presents come up that rope, and things to do that are very interesting and require that I spend much time cogitating what I see in those various panes, or what I read in the stacks and stacks of books that surround my desk or that come through the post...

And there are pictures of people tacked to a huge floor to ceiling bulletin board next to a ticker tape that spits out messages that I then tack to the appropriate pictures....

A sheep someone threw at me grazes on an eternal patch of grass....

There is so much room in this space and I don't know how to fill it. I don't know where to start. Does it need an overstuffed chair or two? Or a huge "media center" where I can gather up all the books and music from the other floors and bring them up here, where I can sink into those memories I've gathered up... and wonder what life had been like if I'd finished those old wings off....

Should I put up a wall or two and make a ballroom (there are sturdy hardwood floors here...shiny varnished...) where people can come and celebrate just for the heck of it?

Or should I make any rooms at all? Should this space stay open to whomever decides to enter and share it with me. Should I stop creating wings and private rooms and things that get locked up and discarded or abandoned for "something better"?

When the time comes, will I be able to leave this space more clean, much neater, and far more sturdy than the others I left behind?

Or will I ever leave this space at all?

These are questions I can't answer....not just yet....I'm still building this space...in my mansion...that is my life...

photo courtesy of The Mount website