My Life In This Room

With just over two weeks left to live here in this one room suite, I'm looking back over my days here....

I remember the beginning in September when it was still warm outside, and everything was new. That first week I lived here without furniture, and slept on blankets on the floor. My computer (I'd refused to let it go in the moving van with my other belongings) was set up on cardboard boxes and a borrowed pillow for a seat. My internet wasn't connected, my computer felt lonely. I stared at the screen like through a window looking onto the faceless brick wall of a building next door. My email ... chatroom ... blog ... website ... all those favourite places I couldn't visit. I contented myself with opening files in my documents, and photoshopping my pictures. Until my back grew tired and my legs fell asleep from the awkward position cross-legged on the pillow.

Those days I spent my time reading magazines, waiting for my life here to begin. I woke in the morning and staggered across the frozen room, wishing someone in the building would explain how to turn on the heat. I smoothed my blankets into place as though they were a real bed. I made tentative forays into the neighbourhood. I found the library and signed up for a card. I found the nearest grocery store and the bank, I discovered three liquour stores. I bought groceries with my credit card and filled my fridge, then remembered that I had no plates or cutlery. My family came to my rescue. I composed a week long email I couldn't send, to my great friend who lives in another country. I entertained myself laying on the floor, propped up on my elbows and imagining the furnished room - how I would make this one room into a home. One morning I heard the moving van pull up five floors below, and crawled so quickly across the floor I bumped my nose against the window. My internet came the same day. Men with tools and wires, and men with my furniture and forms to be signed, crowded into my room.

For a week the room was stuffed with boxes. It was a marathon just to get to the bathroom. I spent all my time unpacking, arranging, and giving away my outdoor plants. I climbed over boxes and dismantled shelving to reach my computer, signed into the chatroom to wait for my great friend, then crawled back again to resume unpacking. I found my juice jug and made orange juice. I mixed it with vodka. I found my records and the player, and danced in the small space I had cleared.

After seven days I was finished. I'd created a home, a nest. I took up my life again like a comfortable skin. My art, my baking, walks through the small wooded land just steps from my building. I liked to sit on the window seat I'd made, gazing out the window at the squirrels below, and smoking. Then told I wasn't permitted to smoke in my suite (a neighbour had seen me in the window, and turned me in). The days were growing colder anyway, it wasn't comfortable at the window, and so I retreated further into the room, away from eyes and the weather.

I looked for a job, and got no results. Again and again I printed my resume and ventured out. I wandered the streets with my camera, I took sly pictures of shoppers in the mall. I wrote notes to myself to call the phone company and the hydro, the internet and the bank, to correct mistakes that had been made in the process of moving. I found a doctor. I got to know my family.

Then Sears called with an offer of employment. I cried on the phone to my mom. My sister took me to her church where they were giving away clothing. I left that place with bags of free outfits. I practiced with new hairdo's and admired myself in the mirror. I bought nylons.

For a week I joined other Christmas staff to learn our new job. For two months after, I devoted myself to selling sweaters and slacks, shirts and socks and underwear and ties and belts. On days my mother couldn't drive me, I walked through the morning streets, feeling sophisticated as never before. I was a Sears employee and damn proud of myself. I learned the job quickly. I wore myself out to make a fine impression. I joked with my coworkers and tried to make myself indispensable. I loved the way my fingers punched the keys to work the till - as though I'd been doing this for years. I was a fast learner. I collected compliments from my boss.

I accepted extra shifts. I had no life except for work. Most days my mom picked me up in the morning - we made a great team. My intercom didn't work and so I waited for her in the lobby, nodding off on the bench, huddled in my long, black coat. She arrived and I made my way out to her car, shivering in the crisp winter morning with the sun still asleep below the horizon. After eight hours I returned home and stumbled into my pyjamas. I hardly spoke with my great friend anymore - just a few minutes in the chatroom to say 'goodnight, I'm exhausted, goodnight.' My life was nothing more than work and sleep. I sensed depression creeping around the edges of my mood. I felt it was all too much, though I loved the job. I couldn't enjoy preChristmas, everything was shelved in favour of job and sleep. I forgot what it was like to relax into the dreamy creation of art. I remembered those fun times I'd had with my great friend, laughing for hours with our microphones and webcams on ... my voice echoing back to me from California. I remembered when his voice filled my tiny room, erasing my loneliness. Now our voices were silent, my microphone tucked behind the monitor. I was too tired.

I dragged myself to bed each night, and turned out the light. I wished myself goodnight. Sometimes I cried a little, as the alone feeling crowded in with the room's other shadows. Sometimes I woke from nightmares and the last echo of my cries faded. Then the alarm screamed its warning and I leapt across the frozen floor to dress for work again.

Christmas came and went. Much of the season's joy was stolen by long work hours. I missed my traditional preChristmas evenings with carols and eggnog, I missed my friend. I managed to regain some of the Christmas Spirit on rare days off, by taking my mind off of everything but the people I love - I created for my friend a gift of poetry. Twice, I opened my mailbox and found gifts from him. I enjoyed the company of my family (a whole new world for me). ...My window leaked and spread pools of rainwater across the floor. I developed bronchitis. NewYears passed without celebration. My employment came to an end and suddenly I had time on my hands. I spent a week mostly sleeping and trying to breathe through my spongy lungs. I made a doctor's appointment.

Now I'm scanning the paper every day, looking for work. I'm printing out my resume with an additional paragraph to include my Sears experience, and dreaming of my next job. Each morning I empty the pots and bowls of rainwater I've set below the window leaks. I take medication for bronchitis. One morning last week I understood - it was time to find another home. Now I'm packing again. My life in this one room has come to an end. It's been a mix of joy and sadness, fun and boredom, loneliness and bliss. Elation and depression. All the usual stuff that makes up the fabric of life for me and everyone else on this planet. Not fascinating enough to write about really, yet here I've gone and filled paragraphs with the story....

In a little more than two weeks, I'll begin another chapter in my life as I make a home in my new apartment. I'm looking forward to Spring.