This place changes a little each time I come back to it. Even through a mask, the dust can find a way to settle into the back of your nostrils. The light has shifted, and the air has a frenetic energy in it. There’s a leak in the crawlspace in the far back corner, which has collected in a pool and traveled down the gentle slope of the retaining wall all the way to the opposite corner. The space seems to be salivating, maybe in expectation of my arrival, or maybe in the anticipation of being one step closer to an impending finality. Or is it bleeding? What will it’s scabs look like? This peculiar codependence has done damage to us both. Visit by visit, wounds are inflicted, moved passed, and brushed over. How will we heal together?
The infection once contained to the living-room crawlspace has spilled into the main area of the basement. The topography of this landscape is self-organizing. Every stack or tower is the result of years of sorting these objects by their sturdiness and weight. This implemented logic exhibits a form of problem solving. If this subterranean entity has any sort of intelligence, then it can feel and likely communicate to each respective compartment of its whole. The distress signal being emitted by the crawlspace over the distance to red floored room has unsettled the intermittent zone where the majority of the memories lie.
When I made my way back to the redroom, I found a makeshift couch compiled of cushions and pillows waiting on the floor for me. Each component of the striped couch appeared to be taken from a different piece of furniture which either no longer exists or whose main hub is buried in the basement’s dense inventory. In the absence of their main support, they’ve found each other, and have made something different. The new couch faces the far, heater clad wall in this perennially empty room. This pale environment has been a place to breath and to think through the baggage, and now there is a place to sit while you do.
