My House

The therapist asked me to close my eyes and imagine a house. He was an intelligent man, albeit smug. While I found his personality wanting, I respected his learning, so I obliged. This was an exercise in “active imagination”. A concept made psychological canon by Carl Jung, but more likely a way for him to fill the hour of my therapy. Perhaps though there would be meaning in this vision of my house and its landscape. Even more telling, you may find, would be the home’s simplistic furnishings and its single secret room.

This is the vision that came to me:

My house stands in a beautiful, secluded scene, surrounded by the bright colors that accompany the maturity of life. The trees have developed the flavors of their experience. They are no longer as full and green with the lushness of their youth; they are proven now, emanating with the character of their seasons of growth. Their leaves drop like strands of hair thinning from their heads, each one sent out to fertilize the ground they inhabit, hopefully for the joy of children who might pile them up one day and play in the bright softness created for a future generation.

But there are no children in my house. There aren’t even any rooms for them, as if to suggest that while the young are welcome to visit and enjoy the seasoned beauty surrounding my old house, it is not meant for the long stays required to raise them.

My house is green. A dark shade, but not dim. There is a bright tint to its rich, earthy color, a tone that suggests it’s satisfied with its existence. It stands in complementary contrast to the fiery landscape of red, orange, and yellow that vibrantly surrounds it. A bright white trim encases the house, and a maroon door welcomes all who wish to enter—should they choose to make the journey down the packed dirt path far from any main thoroughfare.

Inside this quiet house are simple furnishings: an unassuming chair and a live-edge wood bench that honors the grain of the tree whose long-lived years gave of themselves to form this modest piece of furniture. Beside it sits a similar textured wood chest. One might call it a hope chest, but instead of being filled with items collected in anticipation of the future, it contains curated memories of only the most precious moments, the ones that could never be purged. Perhaps the hope in this chest is that one day someone will open it and discover new notions that reassess their preconceptions of its owner.

If you walk across the Mongolian-patterned rug that cushions and insulates the cold trying to seep through the hardwood slats, you will find a secret door. Behind it lies an empty closet lined with raw cedar shiplap and an unused hanging rod. Consistent with the minimalistic style of the home, nothing is stored here. It’s if long ago any item that no longer served the inhabitant was let go and any previously stored shame has been unburdened, leaving room only for the intricate webs woven by its eight-legged roommates.

My house is full of windows, allowing in all the light the serene landscape permits, revealing the melody of dust particles dancing in the warm rays of the sun. At the back of the house there is another door, painted the same bright white as the trim, reflecting warm light into the simple space. Aside from its rough, solid, and functional raw-wood shingled roof, that is all there is to my house.

Are you lonely in this house? you may ask. Perhaps at times. But that was the price of finally finding peace.