rejectomorph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rejectomorph) wrote2003-10-13 05:28 am
rejectomorph) wrote2003-10-13 05:28 am
Bummed
I'm feeling oppressed by houses. Real estate agents call them "homes." Most people seem to have picked up that habit. It irritates me. There can be home towns, home games, homes for wayward children, guest homes, and the home of the whopper, but those buildings people live in are called houses, and far too many of them are unsightly little bits of construction, and the big bits of construction are usually just as bad. I've never much liked even the one I live in myself, and this town has many that are even worse. I don't know why it is, but there are times when I look at this street, and all these awkward little boxes fill me with despair, and I wish that the trees would suddenly spring up through their floors and knock down their walls, and the metal would sink into the earth, and the plastic would dissolve, and the carpenter ants would swarm over the rubble consuming every trace of it, and the whole place would revert to forest.
I wonder if I would ever feel this way if I lived in an Italian hill town, or a village in the cotswolds? Such places are surely aesthetically superior to late twentieth century American settlements with their streets dominated by overbearing garages, and their faux-rustic or post-modern mannerist details glued onto fundamentally industrial structures. At these times, I find myself wondering how people with so much wealth at their disposal have managed to build so much that is, at best, dull, and more often downright ugly.
Most of the time, I try to remain in the world of my imagination as much as possible, and pay attention only to those parts of reality which spring from the earth with a minimum of human interference. But when my imagination fails, or the power of the surviving forest is insufficient to conceal from me the invasive man-made world, I become intensely aware of all these houses, and all the cars in their garages, and all the appliances in their kitchens, and all the glowing digital clocks counting down the hours to doomsday, and all the oblivious inhabitants numb both to the shabbiness they have created around themselves and the remaining beauty that they inexorably displace, then I am overcome with the desire to see it all swept away like Pompeii or Nineveh. But I think I'd have found the buildings in those places far less unsightly than I find the intrusive houses here.
I wonder if I would ever feel this way if I lived in an Italian hill town, or a village in the cotswolds? Such places are surely aesthetically superior to late twentieth century American settlements with their streets dominated by overbearing garages, and their faux-rustic or post-modern mannerist details glued onto fundamentally industrial structures. At these times, I find myself wondering how people with so much wealth at their disposal have managed to build so much that is, at best, dull, and more often downright ugly.
Most of the time, I try to remain in the world of my imagination as much as possible, and pay attention only to those parts of reality which spring from the earth with a minimum of human interference. But when my imagination fails, or the power of the surviving forest is insufficient to conceal from me the invasive man-made world, I become intensely aware of all these houses, and all the cars in their garages, and all the appliances in their kitchens, and all the glowing digital clocks counting down the hours to doomsday, and all the oblivious inhabitants numb both to the shabbiness they have created around themselves and the remaining beauty that they inexorably displace, then I am overcome with the desire to see it all swept away like Pompeii or Nineveh. But I think I'd have found the buildings in those places far less unsightly than I find the intrusive houses here.
no subject
...
I'm right with you, there. It's enough to make me cry.
I live without a dishwasher, ice-maker, or garage. I have bruises on my forearms from the elevator doors (you have to push them open). I don't have central air or heat. I keep my windows open all summer and listen to the radiators tick all winter, wearing wool socks to ward off the draft at the floor level. But the building is big and old and filled with secrets, and I love it.
When I was in Italy last year, I looked up at the little apartments and wondered what they were like. I could imagine moving in. I could imagine calling them home.
no subject
it is quite nice to close your eyes and imagine it all disappearing.