Sanatorium

From the bedroom window I watch treetops churning in a storm. I love how patterns in nature repeat; how these leaves move like rough surf, how a mountain range from an aeroplane view looks like rock pools. 

Sheep have lowered themselves to the grass, under cover of fleeces, away from flailing branches. The window would be open but the wind has palmed it shut.

Monday’s wind chill has morphed into a frustrating Thursday illness. My temperature will not keep still. Sat in bed, with gluey brain, dangerously unoccupied.

This house is exasperating, and damp and creaky and impractical, and being put to auction, we have to let it go: but it has never stopped being interesting. The picture from this window shakes with elemental life.

The weather and my burning head conspire to make melancholy.

Will I fit in the neat cottage, in the sanitary, well-kept interior I have only seen once in my whole life? Doubts sneak back in, like the damn rats, over a dropped guard.

We live here as in a life size experimental art installation. The space interacts with us, we never know what will happen next, what impractical situation will engage our creativity. I indulgently forget how often the impractical situations engage my wrath, and how none of my dream homes, from the cave above a mountain lake to the more likely compact chalet, are in any way cluttered or subject to rat infestation. In the leaner cleaner future, there is space for potential, if; I remind myself, sternly; I look for it.

The strength of a storm draft flings the bedroom door open. An open door is an apt symbol, and, if I were stood by it, potentially injurious. I think of the roof tiles, flying down like slate guillotines.

Dear neat, sanative cottage, I look forward to seeing you again, and soon.