Serenity:

I’m going to detail the room I’ve never had. It might be more of a space than a room, because the details are more about having a space I can trust and lay securely on. But you can probably draw it, because there’s definitely tangible things in it, as well as ideas that can be manifested tangibly.

The space is secure and no one can uproot me from it against my will. I have full autonomy to come and go as I please. I have a chance to belong in this space, it’s my sanctuary.

When music is played, the bass is always turned up.

Whenever someone talks, they are listened to.

There are nooks and corners where I can take naps.

It’s warm, at times, it’s uncomfortably hot.

There’s enough shelving for a small library of books.

There’s traces of you. Anything from a shirt, to an illustration, to a pair of smart glasses.

There’s a wide enough space somewhere in the room for me to dance, and mirrors on the wall.

There’s water in the room or nearby, also plants in or nearby.

It sometimes smells like cocoa butter in the morning and periodically smells like lemons in the afternoon.

Donald:

Chalk it up to an immigrant upbringing, but I’ve struggled with a cluttered room and home my entire life. Everything has a potential second or infinite use, so throwing things away felt counter to a life where wastefulness was a sin. My childhood room was bad enough - the smallest room in the house wasn’t enough to store knick knacks or keepsakes I had accumulated while growing up, and as room freed up in the house I began to creep into my brother’s room - my belongings and paperwork strewn across multiple rooms.

As I began my life on my own, these tendencies, coupled with my unconscious anxieties persisted. I started accommodating my own parents, but insist on reproducing their own lifestyle here even though they would only visit perhaps once a year. A fully stocked kitchen and bedding that would service a family of 4 became my home, and I would cart this from apartment to apartment despite recognizing the ridiculousness of it all. As friends would change jobs and leave the area, they’d leave behind “useful” items, like rice cookers or one off pieces of furniture. At one point I was carting around 3 or 4 rice cookers - the fear of being wasteful prevented me from disposing of them.