A Room Is Memory

Two weekends ago I cleaned out and rearranged the study; last weekend, the living room; this morning, the studio lounge. All this while renovation work on our front porch and upper-floor balcony is slowly resuming after our contractor took a month-long respite gold-mining for himself in Mindanao.

Sometimes it is difficult to decide which items I should throw away. Whenever I pick up something and briefly contemplate it, all of the circumstances surrounding it come back to me--when and where I acquired it, what it meant to me then and what it may still mean to me, the special persons I associate with it, the emotions it elicits.

A room is memory. Going through it, inch by inch, is like delving into the collective unconscious and discovering long-hidden treasures that mark your spiritual growth, last more than a lifetime, and contain your historicity--except that not everyone knows how to access them through psychometry.