Feels like home

My room's got the nickname of "The Cupboard under the Stairs". It's not under the stairs, but it is a closet. At least it used to be, before it got extended enough to fit a bed and a wardrobe in here.
It's got shelves on one wall, one big and low enough to serve as a desk, and my bed is my chair at the same time. The tiny window faces a red brick wall, belonging to the neighbor's house (my dad's first comment was "hey, great view").
Several people asked me why I didn't move out when I had the chance. And why I am not moving out next year.
Well, there is a simple economical reason: the rent is low. And the advantage of having a small room is that one does not accumulate "stuff" - something I am particularly good at (or bad at?). I swear I will be one of those trash ladies one day... I just can't throw anything away, because everything tells a story. And one day when I will have to move, the stuff will just be a bitch to drag along.

But really, the thing is, it's my home now, kind of, and I need that. It's familiar and lived in the way a worn old shoe fits perfectly, and things are familiar and have a kind of consistency that makes me feel safe, that makes me feel like I have roots, somehow. I have moved so much in the past years, I miss having a place that is my "own".
When I look up, out of my window, I see the neighbor's roof and a chimney, and I swear, almost every morning I see the same starling, sitting up on the chimney, shouting, its little throat vibrating.
I love starlings. Their shouts remind me of being in my grandma's village when I was about 5, in the summer, when childhood made everything seem magical. The starlings were shouting especially after the rain, when the air smelled earthy, of wet dust.

My room is decorated with fairy lights, and a mirror, and a picture of John Everett Millais' Ophelia, which was inspired by my favourite passage in Shakespeare's Hamlet. The pre-Raphaelites with all their romantic cheesiness are my favourites. :)
A picture of my dad kneeling behind a Mexican cactus is in my window, and over my "desk" there are pictures of my uncle and aunt, my cousins, the triplets and a picture of my Dallas family that was taken in 1999 when we were at their family reunion at the Texan Gulf coast. It's one of my most treasured memories. I am surrounded by everything that I love.

The sun creeps over the neighbor's roof and falls onto my pootie, all warm and friendly, promising a summer which is not too far off... just behind the hurdle of another month and exams.
The other day I went and bought daffodils, and they stand in my window now like an explosion of tiny transparent glowing suns, having their heads caressed by their mother who is warming my right ear and my shoulder right now. I'm slurping my first coffee from my SouthPark Timmy mug, still in what I call my Victorian nightgown. Simon and Garfunkel sing "Scarborough Fair", and I feel incredibly at peace...


Sorry... this must have been a meaningless, pointless post to you guys. Hella boring. It's one of those things that carry a meaning that is so personal that it can't be communicated.