My Tahiti

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

My room to me is like a tiny island that belongs only to me. I have all rights over it, including cleaning duty. It's sometimes a mess sometimes spic and span, at the moment messy. It's a lavender room with a white ceiling with a huge, almost wall-to-wall window, which has bars across it (apparently apartment policy). The lovely view from my window is my neighbours wall, not that I'm complaining, I've got a 20 inch jungle running around my house so I can gaze at the hummingbird that chills out on the Guava tree if I need any scenery. On rainy days or sunny days the weather in my room is always cold, like a cool breeze took a pit stop and never left. This room is best enjoyed in winter, because I've heard that on winter mornings when you are tucked under that blanket you won't hear any alarms, your eyes may open but only for a second for the powers of this room's coziness are at their peak then. The warmth of the blanket and the coolness of the room combine to form the perfect remedy to be late for everything you have planned that day.

In my room I have the basics and a few extras. A table that has a stack of books and papers on it, I never actually use the table to write on so it stays that way forever. A bed that had four mattresses on it, because it was extremely low, but now has only two. One of which I have rolled up and wrapped up with a srilankan sarong (they're very vibrant) to look like a sweet wrapper and the other one is folded into a floor couch, ideal for bird watching. Along one wall is a shelf containing all the books I own that haven't been stolen or borrowed, never to be returned and along the other one is a gigantic twin cupboard with a mirror in between that has been broken for a year now, because the carpenter owes us some money and decided to abscond, but if you stoop really low you can see yourself. On another shelf above my table I have an assortment of things from the places I've been to consisting of a perfectly triangular pebble I found at a funeral to a rock I found in the rock garden in Darjeeling (my bag was pretty heavy when I returned from that trip), the recent additions being a boat-shaped seed capsule from an African tulip tree, that's not from Africa, and a pine acorn from Ooty. I never actually go anywhere thinking that I have to bring back a piece of the place but I somehow end up picking a stone here and a shell there and I'm pretty sure I'll have to live with this habit forever.

My room has a lot of other interesting things and not-so-interesting things but I enjoy my time within its walls because I know that it is a space that I can relax in away from the world's craziness and I am the sole ruler of said space.